


was i most complete at the beginning or the bow?

by nosecoffee



Category: The School for Good and Evil - Soman Chainani
Genre: Agatha's Self Esteem is Better Than Usual Bc of She Grew Up in a Supportive Community, Alternate Storyline Which Follows a Lot of the Same Plot But Works Out Differently, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Blood and Injury, But Like For Comedic Plot Purposes, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Injury For Character Development, Romance, Some angst, Teenagers Being Allowed To Be Teenagers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:49:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 62,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26793910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nosecoffee/pseuds/nosecoffee
Summary: (if past you were to meet future me would you be holding me here and now?)*“Hey, Agatha?”“Yeah?” She replies, not looking at him, because it’s a little easier to talk to people when she doesn’t look at them, sometimes.“Do you think it would be smart to have each other’s back?” He suggests, sounding like it’s actually more important than he’s making it out to be.“Yeah, I do. I think that would be smart. And nice. To have a friend, I mean.”(or, the one where everything happens a little differently because Callis risked it all and brought Agatha up in Bloodbrook)
Relationships: Agatha/Tedros (The School for Good and Evil)
Comments: 108
Kudos: 141





	1. you said "don't go changing"

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [lizard soup](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21644740) by [pumpkinpaperweight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pumpkinpaperweight/pseuds/pumpkinpaperweight). 



> title from "Historians" by Lucy Dacus because that's what I feel best encapsulates this. 
> 
> First to say that I was initially inspired — by the fic I have linked above — many weeks ago. I started writing without reading anything else in the fandom and briefly consulting my battered copies of the first three books and the SGE wiki. Then I went ahead and read all the works I could in the fandom. And then I worked even harder to get this out. I know it’s not the best thing ever written and the characterisations a little bit off, but I just think this fandom is amazing and I wanted to contribute after being a silent, inactive fan for more than half a decade.
> 
> I’ll also be frank right now and say I haven’t read the last three books. Personally I was really happy with how TLEA ended and I felt it wrapped up the series really nicely so I won’t be including any plot (purposefully) from anything beyond that on the canon timeline. If I did end up using a plot point or character in some way that is reminiscent of something from the last three books, it is coincidental.
> 
> What I really wanted was to write Agatha growing up in the Endless Woods but still being thrown off course because of the school, I wanted her and Callis to have closure, and I wanted her story and Sophie's story to intersect similarly to in the books, but never quite meet in the same way so that they could grow and become their own people without the toxic influences of each other. Tagatha having a friends to lovers arc was also very important to me.
> 
> (If I'm being completely honest this is just me slapping down the first book and saying: Soman, I have some serious notes)
> 
> Reccommended listening for this fic is the following three playlists I compiled while writing this monster:
> 
> [Sophie's](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7AfPZurPDSZdXGYb20A4VA)  
> [Agatha's](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4cBiLhM7LmLOiFGqoL1E8h)  
> [Tedros's](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3aZZ8dUfwmA1WmW9F11Pzo)

_i’ll rearrange to let you in_

  
  


Let’s just say that Agatha didn’t think she’d get to go to school, at all. She figured she wasn’t extraordinary in any way, and other than fitting in quite well with her town’s populace, she just wasn’t all that noticeable.

A woman and her daughter living alone made a lot of sense here. In fact, if there was a complete set of parents in a household, it could be expected to end quite quickly. You see, Evil families are not meant to stick together, because Evil cannot love as purely and nicely as Good, and therefore they were better off alone.

Didn’t stop people from trying — after all, where would Evil children come from? — but it was subject for concern when a couple moved in down the street.

Agatha grew up in Bloodbrook, in a little house by the bend in the creek, with her mother. It had a kitchen and a dining room with a big table and two bedrooms and a mud room that they didn’t use. Anadil always left her shoes there when she visited for tea, though.

And unlike Anadil, Agatha isn’t going to the School for Good and Evil.

Bloodbrook technically has a school. It teaches reading and writing, basic mathematics and history, and then you go on to trades if you don’t end up at the School for Good and Evil. That’s what Agatha’s aiming for. Her mother is a healer, employed at the local clinic. There’s only a few healers as it is, so it will be good to have another around. It does mean the friends she’s made she probably won’t see for a while, given she made friends with kids from the group home, and all with exemplary talents.

There’s Hester, whose mother tried to eat Hansel and Gretel, hence her living in the group home, who can control a tattoo from her neck. It takes immense concentration and power, and given how mean and gloomy she is, Agatha has no doubt she’ll make a great villain. She’s always pleasant to Callis when she’s round for tea.

Anadil’s next, granddaughter of the White Witch, and she always carries around a trio of rats whose bodies she can manipulate to grow bigger and smaller at will. She’s quite soft spoken, but vicious, and sticks to Hester’s side like they’re simply attached. Agatha used to put it down to simple kinship, and sticking to someone familiar, but nowadays she wonders if it’s really all that, or something more. She doesn’t live at the group home. Her mother’s a countess, which means she lives in a two-storey configuration of a house in the better side of town. Hester stays over when she thinks she won’t get in trouble at the group home, she says it’s like a museum and a fancy castle suite had a dusty baby and left it to mould. Apparently, Anadil’s mother abhors dusting.

Hort backs up the rear, though Hester often voices how she wishes he wouldn’t. He’s the son of a pirate who perished in a battle with Peter Pan, and he’s a man-wolf to boot. Agatha would probably find it more impressive if he were any good at it. Still, she thinks it’ll definitely be enough to grant him entrance to the school for Evil. Hester wants to be a proper coven, though and she thinks they can’t do that with a boy hanging around. He’s only still allowed to hang out with them because Agatha insisted and the others take it begrudgingly.

Ani and Hester often meet with a girl from Nottingham, named Dot, who can turn whatever she likes to chocolate, which Agatha absolutely finds impressive. They’re not particularly nice to her, but Dot takes it very well, just pleased to have friends. She only visits Bloodbrook when her father, the Sheriff, goes running after Robin Hood. Agatha probably likes Dot the best, but if she’s right about anything, she hopes she’s right about Dot getting into the School for Good and Evil. That girl deserves the world.

In any case, those friends are all spectacular and talented, and she’s just plain and boring. Being a healer will be good for her, give her something to do. Friends are important but she has to strike out on her own eventually. She’s never been the type to need someone, anyway. In that way, she supposes she’s different. She only needs something to keep her going. Other people need each other. Agatha would quite happily float down the creek forever, undisturbed.

“Every witch has a coven and every wolf has a pack,” she asserts, on a walk. They’re kicking through the dark forest, or rather skirting the edge. It’s not safe to go without the necessary herbs to keep the stymphs away. Never adults know better than to leave children wandering into the forest where the Never-hating birds might snatch them up and eat them. Agatha, however, is intrigued through her fear of them.

“I don’t have a pack,” sulks Hort, behind her. She thinks he’s far too old to be sulking. They’re all turning sixteen this coming year, so if he doesn’t start acting like it, no one will take him seriously.

“You will, one day,” Agatha assures him, lightly, stomping through a mud puddle as she casts a wary eye on the treeline. Just because she likes the birds doesn’t mean she wants her friends to get eaten. “You’re a man-wolf — there’s got to be someone out there who’ll want you in their pack.”

 _“We_ sure don’t!” Hester hollers from about five feet behind them, and Anadil flatly snickers in agreement.

“Shut up Hester!” Agatha yells back, turning a milder expression back on Hort. “Don’t listen to her, _I_ think it’s cool."

“Don’t patronise me,” he huffs at the same time as Hester groans, “Agatha, stop being _nice!”_

“I can’t help it!” She protests. “There’s nothing wrong with being _nice,_ Hester!”

“There is when you’re _evil_ and you want to keep it that way,” Anadil asserts, her feet crunching on every dead leaf in her path.

“Well, forgive me if I don’t want to be mean all the time, like you.”

“I’m not mean _all the time!”_ Hester says, sounding somewhat offended.

“You are with Dot,” Hort points out, diplomatically.

Agatha nods in agreement. “Not a moment’s rest for her.”

“Dot needs to learn her place.”

“Dot needs friends,” Agatha replies, feeling she’s fighting a losing battle. In her experience, it’s very hard to beat Hester.

“We _are_ her friends!” She says. “But if she wants to be part of the coven she has to prove that she belongs there and that means I get to be mean to her.”

Agatha turns her gaze on the albino girl. “Anadil, anything to add?”

Anadil’s red eyes meet hers for a moment. “I agree with Hester,” she says.

“Of course you do. Look, you don’t have to be mean to be scary.”

“Yes, I do,” Hester rolls her eyes, “that’s my whole shtick.”

Agatha huffs, and counters, _“Ani_ doesn’t have to be mean to be scary.”

“That’s because she’s scary through appearance,” Hort tells her. “The _No Effort_ look really helps too.”

She sucks in air through her teeth and says, forcefully, _“Hort_ doesn’t look scary.”

“Correct!” Hester crows, and she and Anadil cackle. Hort crosses his arms over his chest and starts whining about how he’s actually _very scary, thank you very much._

Agatha kicks at pebbles on the road and follows the path into a narrower area by the woods. The canopy above is thicker and the bushes to the sides clump ominously. “Agatha,” Hester calls from further back than Agatha expected, and Agatha turns, spotting her near the mouth of this path’s opening. “We shouldn’t go that way. All the stymphs live there.”

Agatha frowns. She hadn’t realised she’d been leading them towards the stymph’s nesting area. “They’ve never bothered _me,”_ she argues, quickly back. It’s true. For all the harm and fear they cause to the Never community in Bloodbrook, they’ve never so much as looked at her in interest.

“Yeah, and that’s weird enough,” Hort says, looking itchy and uncomfortable. “Come on. I get the creeps here, and not the good kind.”

“You’re not still afraid of stymphs, are you?” Agatha teases, though she feels somewhat uneasy as well.

“Any Never with _sense_ is afraid of stymphs,” Anadil comments as Agatha comes back to them.

“Yeah,” Hester agrees, bumping Andail’s shoulder with her own, “And it’s not my fault you have none and made goody-goody with all the woodland animals like some kind of princess. Lord, sometimes you’re so friendly I think you’re an Ever.”

Agatha flushes with embarrassment. “Take that back,” she growls.

Hester grins, obviously spoiling for a fight, “Make me.”

(The ensuing fight is won by Hester because of brute strength and surprise of sudden attack.)

It’s true, though. She’s weirdly good with animals. They seem to have a friendly understanding. That’s not enough to constitute a talent though, she checked. (Unless she wanted to use it to lead animals to slaughter, the butcher had suggested, and Agatha ran home crying.)

Sometimes her mannerisms, her attitude towards the world, her understanding with animals — it makes her seem like an Ever. Her mother never told her to quash it, but there was always an expression on her face when Agatha told her she was afraid of the Goodness she possessed that quietly suggested she wasn’t all that surprised.

Only a few days after that discussion, Agatha’s been sent out with Hester, once again joining them for tea, to go pick mushrooms for dinner. Callis warned them not to go too deep into the forest, but Agatha has never been very good at taking instruction. Plus, the forest is the only thing that seems to put Hester on edge, so Agatha relishes it when it happens.

“Agatha!” She calls out again, as Agatha finds another clump of mushrooms under a mossy tree. She ignores the other girl’s call and gathers them into her basket, squashing the hem of her saggy black dress into the mud with her knees. It’ll mean she has to do the washing tonight and she can sit out longer by the creek before bed.

“Agatha, it’s getting dark!” Her tone of voice is just on the edge of panic. Agatha grins.

“Scared?” She calls back, teasingly.

“Never!” Hester yells, defiantly. And then, quieter, “But your mother said not to go in too deep!”

Agatha ignores her again, spotting a growth by the crest of the hill. She clumps through the mossy floor, happy just to be a part of nature for a moment, and dreading having to spend the rest of the night indoors.

Then Hester shrieks.

Agatha drops her basket and _runs._

“Agatha!" She screams and Agatha hears the unmistakable sound of a bird screeching, it’s wings catching the wind with a heavy _whoosh._ She runs faster. She wasn’t that far away, was she? She’s not too late, surely?

There’s Hester, and her demon tattoo is pulsing with blood by her side, and they’re both looking up. Stymphs. She’s never going to trust Agatha again. Agatha watches it dive, eyes full of malice and talons outstretched. “Look out!” She cries and Hester looks to her in fear. She’s never seen Hester afraid.

In that moment Agatha thinks Hester is going to die. She wildly wishes someone would come save her.

And just as the stymph’s talons are about to rip through Hester’s chest, a dark blur bursts from the underbrush and throws itself in the way. Hester’s knocked to the ground, and the blur gets back to its feet, even with its flank bleeding profusely, jumping and snapping its jaws, howling. The stymph, frightened by its boldness, squawks and flies off.

Agatha runs to Hester’s side and helps her up. Her tattoo is safely back on her neck, though she’s pale and trembling. “What was that?” She asks, wise eyed.

“A wolf,” Agatha replies, and the two girls stumble towards the now whining creature on the ground. It’s bleeding really badly but strangely it doesn’t snarl and bark at their approach. It just watches Agatha with sad, resigned eyes. “Why did it help us?”

“Magic forest. Who knows why anyone does anything.” Then she groans, “Lord, what if this is the start of our story?”

“They would never write a story about a wolf saving two Never girls from a stymph. No one would read it.” Agatha reaches out hesitantly and though it growls at her, it allows her to pat its head, slowly. She can feel the fight draining from it by the wound in its flank. She can feel it in her own blood. “He’s dying.”

“We’ll be dying soon if we don’t get out of here,” Hester hisses. She looks around, wildly, as if she’ll even see the offending bird coming in the descending gloom. “What if the stymph comes back? I’m not strong enough to fight it now, and you can’t run fast.”

She tugs at Agatha’s arm, trying to persuade her to her feet, but Agatha fights her grip, “Wait, I’ve got to try and help. I’m a healer.”

“Not for animals,” Hester says, “Agatha, _please.”_

“Just give me a second.” And then she hears it. _Help me._ “What?”

“What?” Hester responds, sounding angry and scared. Agatha’s patting hands travel from the wolf’s head to its neck and then its back.

“Didn’t you hear that?” Agatha questions, already knowing that voice had been in her head, alone. “It sounded like he spoke…”

“Wolves can’t talk unless they’re magical, Agatha.”

“This one could be. Why else would he save you?”

_Help me, I’m in pain._

Agatha grips his fur, desperately, leaning in close so that her forehead almost touches his. “How do I help you?” She pleads, quietly.

“Stop talking to it,” Hester begs, sounding almost in tears, “we need to _move.”_

_Set me free._

Agatha relaxes her hands in the wolf’s soft fur and closes her eyes, not sure what she’s doing but knowing she’s got to help.

“What are you doing?”

“Be quiet,” she says, absently, digging for something deep in the recesses of her subconscious, something just the tips of her fingers can brush, something that sparkles when she thinks perhaps this is something she can fix. “I’ve got to—“

Something shimmers behind her eyelids and Hester inhales sharply, her body drawing half away from Agatha’s. Her eyes snap open and she watches in disbelief as the wolf glitters in an eerie gold glow. A figure rises in the glow. A child, a little boy. He smiles at them and they gape as the glow grows brighter and splinters into white light, eventually dissipating leaving no wolf nor child behind.

Hester tugs Agatha to her feet. “I don’t know what black magic you just performed there,” she hisses as they march back towards the village, “but let’s pretend it never happened.”

Agatha silently agrees, and when Callis gasps at their reappearance, muddy and wet, splattered with blood, they tell her a stymph dove and Hester hit it with a stick. For some reason, she believes them.

She and Hester don’t talk about it.

* * *

It’s another month before something dramatic happens again. Dot’s in town — her father missing in Sherwood Forest once more — and Hester and Anadil have been muttering about Agatha’s black magic, just out of earshot of Hort who keeps whining about them not telling him something everyone else knows.

Agatha feels somewhat alienated about it until one day when she and Anadil are fetching water for dinner when the albino girl murmurs, “I think it might be enough to get you into the school.”

“You don’t know that,” Agatha huff as she turns the winch with great effort.

“Agatha, my power is _rats,”_ she snorts, grabbing the overflowing bucket as it comes into view. “I think they’ll take _instant death_ over that any day.”

Agatha ignores the so called _black magic_ for a long time, watching the tree line through her bedroom window and wondering what it was that she did to that wolf that she’d never done before. It’s not that she never tried to help anyone before, nor something magical happening in response to her actions, but it’s the most dramatic happenstance and definitely the most powerful.

She’s making a soup in the kitchen with her mother in the morning on a Sunday, the day all her friends should be receiving their summons to the School for Evil, when a white swan smacks into her window. She shrieks in surprise and jumps back, clutching her ladle to her chest. Callis gets up from the table, eyes wide. “What was it?” She hisses, making a slow creeping progress towards the screen door into the garden.

Agatha beats her there, running down the two steps and around the corner to where it had fallen. There’s a crack in the glass now, but that won’t be a problem until winter hits. It’s sitting there, stunned, not dead, a pink ribbon tied prettily around its long white neck that’s been knocked somewhat askew. She approaches slowly. There are no swans in Bloodbrook. Certainly not elegant white ones with pretty pink ribbons around their necks.

Callis stares at it as Agatha gently brushes its wing with her knuckles. “Is it hurt?” She asks instead of what Agatha knows she wants to say, which is _what the hell is it doing here?_

“I don’t think so,” Agatha says in return, very softly, so as not to spook it. The swan leans into her gentle strokes of its wing, and inspects her, wearily. “It looks tired. And stunned.”

“No one’s about,” Callis whispers, as if she’s afraid of being overheard. “Maybe we should bring it inside.”

She moves towards it and the creature hisses, angrily. She jumps back in surprise. Agatha wonders what the difference is between her and her mother. Then she sees the envelope tucked under its wing. It’s secured with magic, surely, because it would not stay while flying, and it comes away easily under Agatha’s careful touch.

It’s addressed to her. The swan gets to its feet, ruffles itself, lets out an incredibly dignified honk for a swan and takes flight once more, slightly wobbly at first, and then righting itself en route to the overcast sky.

Agatha and her mother watch it go until it disappears from sight. Then she looks down at the envelope in her hand, getting to her feet. “Let’s go back inside,” she suggests, and doesn’t wait for a response before she climbs the steps and renters the kitchen. Callis is hot on her heels as Agatha sets the letter down on the table, warily watching it.

Surely not. Surely Anadil wasn’t right. It can’t be.

Callis hovers by her side. “Why don’t you open it?” She suggests, probably wondering the same thing as she buzzes with untapped energy. “Better to not wait.”

The penmanship of her name on the envelope is unparalleled in its elegance. She didn’t expect such poise from the School for Evil, but maybe she underestimated their attitude. Maybe they’re more professional than she gave them credit for.

In any case, Agatha rips open the envelope and pulls the folded parchment out.

 _Dear Miss Agatha of Bloodbrook_ it reads at the top, and Agatha reads hungrily on, aware her mother is doing just the same, over her shoulder. _We are pleased to offer you a place at the School for Good Enlightenment and Enchantment,_

Agatha stops reading. That’s not right.

She reads over it again. _The School for Good._ Maybe she needs her eyes checked. Her eyes must surely be bugging out of her head. She turns to look at her mother, because if she’s wrong Callis’ reaction will lend to reality. But Callis is frozen still, a look of muted shock stuck on her face.

It’s real. Agatha feels faint. _The School for Good._

* * *

They don’t tell anyone. No one saw the swan. Agatha hides the acceptance letter and the ticket to the Flowerground under her pillow and smiles for her friends when they all get their (messier) letters telling them they’ve been accepted into the School for Evil’s program. Dot’s overjoyed she got accepted and even Hester begrudgingly admits she’s pleased about it.

Anadil frowns at Agatha when she proclaims (truthfully) she didn’t receive a letter from the School for Evil. “That’s a shame. We’ll really miss you.”

“We will,” Hort agrees.

Agatha nods to them and contemplates admitting to them the truth. How would they react? Probably how she did.

 _(“But that’s impossible! I can’t be Good!_ _You’re_ _not Good!”_

_“Agatha, please, keep your voice down!”_

_“Mom, I can’t go to that school! They’ll know I’m wrong. I wasn’t brought up like they were. I won’t fit in. It’s got to be wrong. I’m wrong. Mom, please. It can’t be true. How could it be true? You’re Evil, aren’t you?”_

_“Completely.”_

_“Then it’s got to be a mistake. We need to write back to them, tell them they got it wrong. I can still be a healer with you. Pretend this never happened. Please, mom,_ _please_ _don’t make me—”)_

She can’t tell them. They won’t understand.

Hester presses her tongue against the back of her top front teeth, “Well, it’ll be good for this place to have another healer. Seriously. I think you’ll make a difference around here.”

Agatha thinks that if those snooty Good people could hear how her friends were reassuring her, they wouldn’t act so high and mighty. She supposes she’s technically one of those Snooty Good People now, isn’t she. It makes sense why the stymphs never went after her, now. Why would they go after a Good girl?

“Thanks, guys,” she mutters, and kicks up some moss.

Attendance to the School for Good and Evil is compulsory once you’ve received your acceptance letter. At this point, Agatha doesn’t have a choice, unless she wants to be hunted by the School Master’s goons, and dragged to that pretty crystal castle. Hiding in the stymph forest won’t help her, and no one here would harbour her once they knew what she was. A little Ever imposter.

She’s got no choice but to go and face her fate. It makes no sense, though, how she could possibly be Good.

After they’ve dispersed to go about their own activities, she finds her mother in the kitchen, fixing a little hat to her hair. She looks somewhat more refined than Agatha’s ever seen her. She looks _fancy._ “What’s the occasion?” She asks, curiously.

“I’m going to buy you a dress,” her mother explains, shortly. She picks up the tape measure and gestures for Agatha to come closer. “Come here, I need to take your measurements.”

“I could just come with you,” Agatha argues. “And Ethel knows my measurements, despite how often we go there.”

Her mother’s gaze turns downcast, and she pretends to look for something in her town bag. “I’m not going to Ethel.”

“Why not?” Agatha questions, immediately, already sensing a shift. Already, she can feel the gap between her and Callis widening. Just because of some stupid letter and some stupid people who didn’t know what they were doing and her Evil mother and her stupid sudden Good blood. “Is Ethel suddenly not good enough for you?”

“Agatha,” Callis sighs, setting the bag down on the table, “I need to buy you an _Ever_ dress.” Agatha opens her mouth to protest, but her mother raises a silencing hand that does the trick. “You can’t ride the Flowerground looking like that, and you _certainly_ can’t turn up to the School for Good looking like that.”

“I don’t care what they think of me,” Agatha asserts, once it’s clear her mother’s said her piece. “If I have to go, I’m not giving up any part of me.”

“I’m not asking you to,” Callis soothes her, coming closer and running her hands down Agatha’s thin arms. “I’m just asking you to protect yourself.”

“Mom,” she says, hoping to convince her out of it, afraid of the stares, of the reality it would take, of the fact she needs to accept that she’s going to the School for Good in a week, that she won’t see her mother for nearly a year in the intervening time, that her life plan has been rudely torn apart. “I think I can handle whatever they throw at me—“

“Agatha, they’ll tear you apart.” Callis whispers. Agatha feels like crying. “They will rip you into little bits and they’ll laugh at you. I don’t want that. I want you as safe and happy as you can be. So I’m going to buy you an Ever dress and maybe a hat as well, and when you leave next week, you’re going to promise me you won’t get yourself in trouble.”

_“Mom—“_

“Agatha, this is not a discussion.”

Agatha puts on her cloche hat and her pea coat and they borrow a horse from their neighbour to ride to Jaunt Jolie. Callis ignores the stares of the Ever citizens, but Agatha can’t. They look disgusted and curious and worried at their appearance, and Agatha feels frightened of what they might do because of that. She wonders if the three hour ride to Jaunt Jolie was worth the stares.

They tether the horse up in front of the first dress shop they come across, and walk in together, a united front. The tall, slim lady behind the counter takes one look at them and adopts an expression like she’s just encountered a rather foul smell and would like very much to avoid it.

“We only serve Ever’s here,” she calls from the counter. Callis smiles at her.

“Good thing we’re shopping for an Ever,” she tugs Agatha over to inspect some ruffled red thing that looks like a curtain that got caught in a freak whisking incident. It’s so ugly, that Agatha knows Callis is using it as a distraction from the lady behind the counter. The lady that is currently stalking towards them, looking quite put out.

“Ma’am,” she sighs in a very put-upon voice, “I have to ask you to leave.”

“Why?” Callis asks innocently, blinking owlishly. The woman looks disgusted, and in return Agatha feels rage well up in her at the sight.

“Because I know your kind, and I don’t need this kind of reputation,” the woman huffs, crossing her arms over her chest like a petulant child. “If people hear I allowed a Never to stay and browse in my shop what kind of standard will that set?”

“A tolerant one?” Callis suggests, smartly, and the woman goes red, obviously fuming.

“Get out,” she bites and turns on her heel.

“Ma’am?” Agatha says, quietly, and the stern woman turns around, setting her hateful eyes on her. Agatha’s hand shakes as she holds out her School for Good acceptance letter. “I just need a dress for the Flowerground. If I get on like this it’ll seat me with Never’s and I’ll miss my stop on the first day of school.”

A dumbfounded look clouds the woman’s features as she takes in the letter and the words upon it. Agatha watches the woman mouth the word _Bloodbrook._ She feels quite smug, but doesn’t dare show it. If she wants the woman to feel bad, she has to continue playing the victim, not the cat that got the cream. A little deception won’t hurt, especially deception over a rude, classist Ever woman.

“It-it seems I’ve, er,” the woman stammers, looking surprised and embarrassed and quite angry, “It seems I’ve been mistaken. Would you like any help?”

“Absolutely,” Callis smiles, smugly, and begins to herd the woman around, stacking dress upon dress in the woman’s arms and parading Agatha about. She’s measured for two day dresses and an evening gown (“You know the final assessment in the first year is a ball, right?”), and then she tries on what thousands of dresses that just seem to blend into each other as time goes on. Agatha imagines herself sitting on a cloud, watching stars in the sky as her mother discusses with the woman about how tight the waists are. Agatha sighs, sitting back on the cloud.

“Oh, hello there,” says a sudden voice that makes Agatha jolt. Sitting beside her on the cloud is an old man with a long white beard and a dark blue robe and hat. He looks surprised but delighted to see her. “How did you get in here?”

Agatha opens her mouth to answer when she snaps back to the dress store, feeling dizzy. It’s probably the corset she’s been standing around in.

She seats herself on the stool by the mirror and watches her mother register her paleness and quiet demeanour. They’ve been here for hours. They didn’t make any supper to be eaten when they return. She’s probably going to bed late and hungry.

Callis trails off. “That’s probably enough for today,” she asserts to the woman, who nods, eagerly, looking grateful to have an out, despite how interested she got in the conversation. “I’ll just pay and we’ll hopefully have those by Sunday night.”

“Of course,” the woman agrees, and they both hurry to the counter. Agatha wearily takes off the corset and gets back into her day dress and coat, holding her cloche hat in trembling fingers. She’s never actually worn a corset before. It makes her feel much older, much more mature than she usually feels. Now, just in her chemise and dress, she feels almost naked without it.

When they’re finally back on the horse, Agatha wraps her arms around her mother’s waist and rests her head on her back, almost asleep before they even set off. “I’ve got you a cream dress with the leg of mutton sleeve, and a light blue one for the Flowerground, and it’s much simpler, shorter sleeves. And the evening gown, Aggie dearest, you’re going to love it, because it’s dark blue and full length and a-line, and it tapers in at the waist, oh, you just wait, all those other girls are going to be so jealous.”

* * *

The day school starts, Agatha puts on her blue day dress, shoves her pea coat over it and stuffs her cloche hat over her head. It’s best if no one realises what’s happening, her mother will benefit from the assumption that people will draw -- that Agatha’s gone off to the School for Evil as well. When she next returns, they can set the record straight, but the best strategy is to never draw too much attention right off the bat.

As if that’ll be easy in a castle full of girls who make her look like a warped festival mirror.

All her personal belongings are safe inside her school-mandated trunk, along with a new writing set, which she just knows is going to see a lot of action if she doesn’t want to end up as a patch of clover by the side of the road.

Callis hugs her tightly goodbye, making her promise to write home, and to stay safe. Then she fixes Agatha’s hat, pats her cheek, and lets her go. Agatha walks quickly into the forest, trunk bumping along the dirt road behind her. They didn’t manage to get her new shoes on their trip to Jaunt Jolie, so Callis polished up Agatha’s clumps and painstakingly painted some brogue-ish patterns on the sides so they could be seen as somewhat elegant. She’s going to stick out like a sore thumb no matter what, but it’s the thought that counts.

The entrance to the local Flowerground station is hidden, so Agatha has to do a bit of wandering around until she finds it, and a small blue caterpillar peaks out of the hollow in a tree. “Thank you for calling the Flowerground. No spitting, sneezing, singing, sniffling, swinging, swearing, slapping, sleeping, or urinating in the flowertrains. Violations will result in the removal of your clothes. Ticket?”

Agatha mutely hands it over and the caterpillar nods, handing it back. He whistles and vines whip out of the hollow, taking hold of her and her trunk and sucking her down. It’s an exhilarating experience, not one she’s been privy to before (Never’s are not often invited places fancy enough to be reached by flowertrain) so when she ends up hanging from a vine full of yellow flowers, a sign above her head proclaiming it the Dahlia Line, she’s actually quite chuffed about it. There are other, more elegant girls in front of her and they don’t seem to take notice of her at all. They chat and laugh in a dignified manner, their trunks made of nice caramel-lacquered wood, as opposed to Agatha’s darkwood one, her name engraved on the side, while theirs are painted there in gold leaf.

Agatha decides there’s no point in dwelling over what they have that she doesn’t, and simply watches the flowers around her as they move from place to place, picking up pretty Evergirls every so often. She inspects her acceptance letter once more (once in millions of times) just to be sure that in all the times she’s reread it, she hasn’t missed the part where they say _kidding!_ and revoke her attendance.

She takes off her coat so she won’t look too weird all dressed in black when they arrive, but keeping her hat on, embarrassed, suddenly, of her hair, now that every other girl here has a veritable waterfall of shiny locks. After almost half an hour the caterpillar screeches out, “The School for Good and Evil!” and all the girls begin tittering excitedly. One by one they all tug on the vines holding them and they zip up into the exit with their trunks.

Agatha follows their lead and can barely breathe with how fast the vines whip her back out of the Flowerground. She feels grass beneath her feet and opens her eyes to find herself standing on the flowered shore of a magnificent crystal castle, surrounded by girls blooming from the ground. She imagines she must look so disheveled and out of place, but she sets her shoulders, reminding herself she couldn’t be here if it was a trick or a mistake. The Flowerground only accepts valid tickets. The stymphs would have attacked her so many times when they hadn’t if she was a Never. That wolf in the woods wouldn’t have saved her friend if she were Evil.

A dainty voice clears their throat in front of her, and Agatha looks up quickly, only to meet the topaz eyes of a blonde haired beauty. She grins at Agatha, but there’s something off about the grin. She opens her mouth to let out what must surely be a devastating back-handed compliment or an enquiry of whether Agatha got off at the wrong stop, when a group of fairies descend and take the Evergirls by the shoulders, flying them up to the entrance of the school, their trunks not far behind them. Agatha is thankfully turned away from the topaz-eyed blonde who seems to already have it in for her, and instead focuses on the fairy glowering at her from two girls ahead.

It’s a boy, and he looks very unhappy to see her, although maybe that’s his general demeanour. Agatha can’t tell. It all feels like a fever dream. She feels any minute she’ll wake up in her own rickety bed at home and it will all have been a very elaborate dream.

When they’re set down in the shiny entrance hall, the girls surround her once more, looking at her like some kind of garish art piece they haven’t inspected yet. And, yes, Agatha is aware she isn’t pretty, and she certainly isn’t full-on beautiful like all the Evergirls blocking her path, but it’s not like she’s a hog in a dress. She has _feelings._

She crosses her arms over her chest, holding tight to her pea coat that’s still draped over one arm. “Can I help you?” she asks politely. Back in Bloodbrook, it didn’t matter what anyone looked like, you treated them with the same respect you’d serve anyone. Looks don’t constitute levels of respect, and politeness was a virtue they could certainly all afford. Being Evil doesn’t mean you’re exempt from rules of etiquette.

The same girl from before, the blonde one, the one Agatha thinks is probably an actual princess, steps forward once more, her sweet smile still in place, and finally she speaks, like little bells ringing, “I’m Beatrix. I didn’t catch your name?”

“I never said it,” she snaps, feeling irritated by the way this girl automatically assumes she’s better than her. She immediately shakes the angry thought away, reminding herself that she needs to make a good first impression, and aggression won’t get her anywhere. She extends her hand and smiles, saying, “I’m Agatha.”

Beatrix inspects her hand with a wrinkled nose, and Agatha sees it’s smeared with a bit of dirt from trying to find the Flowerground this morning, so she quickly hides it in the folds of her peacoat. “Right, well,” Beatrix broaches, recovering her lovely smile once more, “I was just wondering if you were in the right place, is all.”

Though she was expecting such an assumption, it still stings, and she’s still taken aback by the boldness and surety of the question. “I, uh, no I’m—”

“Perhaps you swam to the wrong school?” Her haughtiness is really grating on Agatha’s nerves and she really just wants to get away from this girl who seems to hate her just from appearances, but there’s no escape from the questioning.

“I didn’t swim,” she asserts, her shoulders set back and her chin held high. Let Beatrix judge her all she wants, Agatha isn’t giving up her self esteem so this princess can be more comfortable at the top of the pecking order. “I got here by flowertrain.”

She holds up her ticket, and Beatrix deflates a little. “Oh,” she says, looking put out. “So you’re not lost?”

“Afraid not,” she grumbles, and stuffs her ticket back into her coat pocket.

“But you look like a Never!” Pipes up one of the other girls, sounding accusatory and bewildered.

“Funny that,” Agatha says, almost laughing as she adds, “My mother’s one of those.”

Cacophony rises as the girls begin to discuss this proclamation, outraged, claiming she’s lying or an imposter, most calling for her to be thrown in the moat so she can float over to the School for Evil where she belongs. Who knew princesses could be so violent? Agatha doesn’t think they’ll make very diplomatic leaders when it comes down to it.

Before any of them can act on the call to arms, seven-foot tall nymphs crowd them and direct them towards the main foyer, where four shiny staircases trail upwards into crystal towers, and the faculty line the steps, throwing confetti down on the girls. Most of them give Agatha weird looks but she pretends not to see, just glad they interrupted before these Evergirl’s could throw her in the moat. Her mother said something about not making enemies on the first day, but Agatha’s not very good at following instruction.

Once the staff are done with their confetti the nymphs hand out schedules, books, and dresses, all pink. Agatha’s never been a fan of pink, but the list of school rules and values that came with her acceptance letter stated very clearly that she must wear the provided uniform or suffer the consequences. She takes it with as much hesitance as she thinks is acceptable and quietly pulls off her dress and slips her white blouse on, sliding the pink pinafore on afterwards. She cautiously takes off her cloche hat, holding it with her coat and dress. She feels severely out of her depth, while all the girls around her look quite at home. She supposes this fits perfectly with their view of the world. She wonders how her friends are faring across the moat, and hopes they’re feeling better than she is.

She realises she’ll probably see them at the welcoming ceremony. They’ll probably see her. She should have told them. Nothing to be done about it. Agatha inspects her schedule, and seeing her name _Agatha of Bloodbrook, Good 1st Year, Purity Room 51_ emblazoned on the top calms her somewhat. She didn’t trick them, she just omitted the truth. She didn’t know she was Good until the letter came and made everything, years upon years of unexplainable events, make sense. She didn’t know. It’s not her fault. Hopefully they’ll forgive her.

The nymphs gesture the Evergirls towards two of the now-empty staircases, and Agatha follows a flood of girls going up the pink staircase towards the Purity tower. The sign on door 51 says _Welcome Reena, Millicent, and Agatha!_ but she ends up alone anyhow. It’s actually quite nice. The room is bigger than her house in Bloodbrook. Doesn’t mean it isn’t lonely, but if they’d rather room with Beatrix and other snotty princesses that’s fine by her. Let them call her witch and imposter, she’ll sleep tight in a room all her own. Her trunk is already placed against the foot of the bed against the far wall, and while it’s all quite prissy and over-the-top, it’s not as bad as it could be, though she could certainly do without the mirrors. Mirrors everywhere in this place.

She’s had practice avoiding them. No one will mind if she throws blankets from the empty beds over the offending objects so she can feel safe in her room. No one will be here to mind. Agatha wonders idly what their punishment is for vandalism. It wasn’t covered on the list of school rules and values, and there’s quite a lot of unnecessary rhinestones everywhere. She could really do without it all. She wonders, as well, if she’d get expelled, or get extra points for remodelling her room in her own design, a more comfortable design, a design that didn’t include so much pink, and all the murals of happy princesses winning their princes, and _no rhinestones._

It doesn’t matter too much, because before she can act on any of the wondering, the fairy patrol comes round to let all the girls know the welcoming ceremony is about to begin. Apprehension rises in her when she realises all her friends will be there, to see her in this ridiculous dress, sitting with the enemy. She feels nauseous at the thought. Hester and Anadil value loyalty above almost everything else.

She follows the pink, squealing parade down the stairs and through the west doors into the Theatre of Tales and finds herself almost completely alone in a blue pew, looking towards the flood of students in black smocks, coming in through the east doors. She finds herself watching out for white-blonde hair and demon tattoos, but makes herself look away. Maybe if they can’t feel her looking at them, they won’t notice her and she can get through this year without them ever seeing her.

Agatha gets so bored of waiting that she very nearly falls asleep in her pew, and then all of a sudden the west doors open once more and sixty Everboys in periwinkle coats rush in, all waving swords around wildly in the parody of a massive swordfight. Only a few look like they actually know what they know what they’re doing, and Agatha fixes her gaze on those few. The one that draws her attention the most is a blonde-haired, blue-eyed beauty that fends off any that come near him, a confident look on his face, one hand behind his back in an obvious vain show of skill. She’d probably hate him on sight if he wasn’t so skilled.

The girls around her coo and swoon at the sight of them, and when the spectacle finally ends in a crescendo of each boy throwing a rose to an Evergirl they like the look of, Agatha accidentally meets the gaze of the skilled, blonde boy and he falters, seemingly caught on her own gaze, a fish on a hook. And doesn’t she feel _wicked._ The girls around her clamour for roses, but she just stares at this boy who stares back, bewildered and intrigued.

When he finally throws his rose in the general direction of a group of screeching Evergirls, still watching Agatha curiously, she looks away, but not quick enough to miss the ethereal looking, blonde Nevergirl who flings herself into the fray for his rose. A wolf drags her away a moment later and Agatha and the boy watch her in shock. The girl very clearly does not appear to belong there, and Agatha can’t help but feel she’s cheated some poor Evergirl for her chance here. The wolf, however, seems to think the girl belongs in Evil.

The boy is pulled in to sit next to Beatrix, so Agatha turns back around in her seat to face the stage, but feels his eyes burn into the back of her head. She made an impression without doing anything. She wonders if it was a good impression or not.

She phases out through the introductions done by the two-headed dog, waxing poetic about Pure Good and Pure Evil, to the point that she doesn’t realise things are getting out of hand until students on both sides are yelling about one student out of place, the blonde Nevergirl subject to one side of the yells, Agatha the other. She is heaved to her feet by someone behind her so that the two-headed dog can see her more clearly, and eyes from all sides are fixed on her. Agatha turns her head and meets Hester, Anadil, Hort, and Dot’s shocked and betrayed gazes. She wants to cry.

“Every class, we bring two readers here from the World Beyond!” Declares the nicer head, and now Agatha is confused, She turns to face him. _Readers?_ “They may know our world from pictures and books, but they know our rules just as well as you. They have the same talents and goals, the same potential for glory. And they too have been some of our finest students.”

Agatha can’t focus. Two readers? She’s not a reader. She’s from Bloodbrook. Born and raised. Then again, she also thought she was a talentless Never, only to be proven wrong on all accounts. It’s all too confusing. She wishes she was at home, training to be a healer alongside her mother. Then her friends wouldn’t hate her and her peers would be blissfully unaware of her existence. Agatha wants to fade away.

She doesn’t listen to any other things proclaimed by the two-headed dog, even as she sits back down, surrounded by stares from her peers. She feels terrible. When they’re finally allowed to leave, she heads up the rear of the group of nearly one-hundred and twenty Evers, chirping and giggling, most girls holding roses, most boys with an arm looped with an Evergirl’s arm. The few Evergirls left near her hiss things like _witch_ and _cheat_ as they pass. The blonde boy casts a concerned look back at her and so she turns away, not wanting any pity whatsoever.

Agatha instead casts her own look back at the Nevers and finds Dot still watching her with a sad look on her face. Hester is berating her and gesturing for her to follow, a fierce look on her face. She meets Agatha’s eyes and fumes, almost red in the face, turning away immediately.

To review: one, her best friends in the world hate her, two, she’s the most out of place Evergirl known to man, good enough to match the beautiful Nevergirl still somehow vying for that blonde boys attention, three, she has a room all to herself because none of her peers want to room with her, four, even the faculty is confused by her appearance, and five, she feels ready to throw up and die on the spot.

This year is already turning out badly.

* * *

When she wakes up the next morning, it’s to the fairy patrol knocking on her door, giving her fifteen minutes for breakfast before class. Agatha fell asleep crying in her blouse and pinafore, so she looks rumpled, sleep deprived and shiny from dried tears, but not too bad on the whole. She peeks out into the corridor and finds Evergirls flitting back and forth begging for makeup tools they left behind, help with hair, extra petticoats, and more. It’s kind of vomit inducing, if she’s honest, the amount of work these girls are putting in, just to look _good._ She snakes her way through their ranks, head down, and once away from the over-perfumed horde, she hurries down the steps, into the entrance hall, which is all but empty.

She’s not really hungry, still confused and deflated from yesterday, so she turns away from the breakfast hall, wondering what she could do with her time before class.

She ends up climbing the Honor tower stairs; up, past the candy classrooms that make her stomach rebelliously grumble, the dorm rooms, and the library, and when she finally hits fresh air, she finds herself in a rooftop garden that proclaims itself to be _Merlin’s Menagerie._ Sculpted hedges and precisely cut shrubs are scattered around, beneath tall trees and above lush grass and clover. The hedges seem to chronicle the triumphs of King Arthur, so Agatha ignores them, not in the mood for stories.

She heads towards the edge of the garden, a stone wall that comes to the bottom of her ribs is the only barrier between her and thin air. Gargoyles scatter the walls below and the rest of the castle as well. Agatha thinks she recalls the two-headed dog talking about how they were trained to kill, and didn’t know the difference between intruders and students yet, so she shies away from the closest one.

“You’re not thinking of jumping are you?” Says a sudden voice, and Agatha whips around, startled. It’s the boy from the welcoming ceremony, the overly-skilled one. He’s sitting beneath a sculpted hedge of Arthur and Guinevere embracing tightly. “That’d put a damper on the first day of classes, I think.”

“That wasn’t the plan,” Agatha replies, loudly, still jarred by finding she’s not alone. Her mother, when frightened or surprised, always resorted to joking, which Agatha picked up by accident, which is the only reason she follows the statement up with, “But if you were hoping for some entertainment I’m sure I could manage a small, controlled fire a little later.”

He lets out a surprised laugh at that, “I look forward to it.”

More relaxed, Agatha leans against the low wall, crossing her arms over her chest, “Why did you think I was going to jump?”

The boy cocks his head. He looks significantly more relaxed than he did the day before, no tie and no coat, but also no gaggle girls vying for his attention. “Because you got made a fool of in front of the whole school yesterday?” Here, Agatha flushes in embarrassment, but he doesn’t take notice, instead continuing his suggestions, “Plus, I’m pretty sure half the girls here think you cheated your way in and want to get rid of you.” He doesn’t sound particularly convinced. “I don’t _really_ know.”

“Well, I’m _not_ going to jump,” she huffs, frustrated because she was just trying to find an empty place to breathe and instead finds herself to be the amusing courtier to this maliciously entertained boy. But, as she looks closer, she realises there’s no malice in it. He’s not making fun of her, he’s just being foolishly honest. Agatha takes a deep breath, schooling her emotions, and adding, “I’ve just never been up this high before.”

“Really?” The boy gets up from where he’s sitting. “They don’t have funny tall buildings in your reader village?”

Agatha burns red once more, surprised and somewhat offended he believes she’s a reader. She could throttle the nicer portion of the two-headed dog for all the progress it’s supplied her. “I’m not a reader,” Agatha clarifies, trying not to sound completely put out. “I don’t know what he was talking about yesterday. I grew up in Bloodbrook.”

He blanches. “Bloodbrook? So you’re a _Never?”_

“I thought so?” Agatha says, quickly, and continues, “But you know how stymphs hate Nevers?”

“Yeah?”

“They’ve never attacked me. So now I’m not so sure,” she sighs, and sits down on the nearest stone wall, just below a statue of Guinevere baptising her baby boy. “And the fact I managed to be here, right now? That kind of indicates I’m an Ever, though I don’t know how I could be, given my mother is _definitely_ a Never.”

“A mystery to be solved not early in the morning on the first day of class,” the boy suggests as he sits down beside her.

“Agreed,” she says, and probably against her basest of instincts, she smiles. Was it always this easy to befriend people? She thinks if it were she wouldn’t hate Beatrix just based off one singular interaction. It’s then she realises she doesn’t know this boy’s name, so she extends her hand towards him. “I’m Agatha, by the way.”

“Tedros,” he replies, shaking her hand with a diplomatically tight grip. She can respect that.

“Good name,” Agatha says, for want of something else to say. Tedros gets a mildly bemused look on his face.

“Are you being sarcastic?” He asks, obviously trying to sound serious, though he’s laughing a little.

She cocks her head to the side, releasing his hand and leaning back a little. “Do you want me to tell you your name is _crap?”_

He ponders this for a short time, before offering, “I could tell you _your_ name is crap.”

“You could,” Agatha agrees. “I’m not being sarcastic. I was just thinking that was the name of King Arthur’s son, wasn’t it? And it’s a funny coincidence that we’re in the garden telling his story?”

Suddenly, Tedros’ expression dulls and his eyes turn sad. “Yes,” he says, voice void of the laughter it had held moments ago. “Funny coincidence.”

Agatha feels lost. She’s obviously touched on some sore nerve, not one she meant to—

Oh. _Crap._

“Oh my lord, you’re him,” she blurts out, and her embarrassment must be incredibly palpable because Tedros snorts, amused by her cluelessness. “Oh, lord, I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise — oh that’s why all the girls — oh my _lord,_ I’m so stupid, I’m so—”

“Hey, it’s fine. It’s kind of refreshing, actually,” and he doesn’t seem all that upset anymore, even as she buries her face in her hands, murmuring _sorry_ over and over again. Tedros places his hand on her back and she jolts at the contact, not sure when someone last touched her nicely, apart from her mother. “Don’t — ha, no don’t apologise. It’s _fine.”_

“Let’s just start again,” she suggests, pulling away from both his touch and her own hands. She schools her expression carefully, before turning back to face him and extending her hand once more. Agatha musters a smile and says, “I’m Agatha of Bloodbrook, daughter to a Never, but somehow an Ever. I’m not a reader, either, and I’m just going to try and get through the next few years without being killed or failed or thrown in the moat by a bunch of Evergirls who give me imposter syndrome.”

Tedros laughs, and warmly takes her hand in his, replying in kind, “I’m Tedros of Camelot, son of Arthur and Guinevere, soon to be crowned king of Camelot and wishing every time I was out in the open girls didn’t beg to be my future queen, or tell their friends that I’m taking them to the Snow Ball when I’ve made no such promises.”

When he releases her hand, she leans back against the base of the statue, giving the brightening sky a tired look, and saying to her companion, “Looks like those _princesses_ have got it in for both of us.”

“In different ways,” Tedros allows, and leans back as well. “They want to take you down so they can use you as a step up to me.”

She snorts, “Well, _hello_ to you too, Mr High-and-Mighty.”

They sit in companionable silence for a few moments, before Tedros breaks it, voice tentative, “Hey, Agatha?”

“Yeah?” She replies, not looking at him, because it’s a little easier to talk to people when she doesn’t look at them, sometimes.

“Do you think it would be smart to have each other’s back?” He suggests, sounding like it’s actually more important than he’s making it out to be. “A little extra protection, a friend who knows what it’s like?”

“And _what_ is it like?”

He huffs, “Being suffocated by expectations and judgement. Wanting an out.”

“Huh.” And Agatha smiles, because he _does_ seem to know what it’s like. A prince can connect with a witch-girl from Bloodbrook, flopping around in an Ever castle like a fish out of water. “Yeah. I think that would be smart. And nice. To have a friend, I mean.”

At this, he gets to his feet, and heads towards the exit. “So,” Tedros says, in the doorway, smiling awkwardly at her, “I guess I’ll see you in Good Deeds?”

“Sure thing, partner,” she agrees, carefully, and he leaves her there. Agatha’s never been this high up. And she’s probably made a friend. She hopes he’s not just kidding her.

* * *

After curfew, she doesn’t stay in her room. There’s no one there to report her out of bed, of course, so why would she? Especially now that she knows they aren’t going to kill her for setting a neither small, nor controlled fire at the school, destroying several classrooms via an animal stampede, and freeing a gargoyle that splintered into light, just like the wolf in the forest and the girl who had once been Wish Fish.

She still remembers Tedros’ furious face over the destroyed garden they’d spoken in, only that morning, and how his expression had changed once he realised what she was doing to the gargoyle. She remembers him kneeling across from her when it had disappeared. She still remembers how she begged him not to be angry with her, and he told her it wasn’t her fault.

(She thinks he wouldn’t have been so kind if she hadn’t spoken to him that morning.)

Then they’d dragged her away, and she hadn’t heard what he’d yelled after her.

The library is empty of anyone who would report her out of bed, but she sits far in the back just in case, reading by candlelight any book she can find on wish granting. It appears to be a rare talent, and a purely Good one at that. She reads up on the history of the talent, and looks at the printed portraits of those before her who’ve held that talent.

Kind mothers and mill boys with nothing else to give the world. No famous princesses and maidens have ever held this power before, just past students who maybe ranked as Helper, at best. Agatha’s not sure that bodes well for her, but in any case it’s more than she had the day before. And it’s relieving to know what’s going on, both in this castle and in her mind. Knowing she isn’t a mistake, isn’t wrong, and was picked because of a purely Good talent, a Good heart — that relieves her more than anything else could.

Agatha just hopes everyone else can see it that way, too. Otherwise she’ll be notorious for extreme vandalism and bullied so much she’ll probably fail.

She takes in the charts and studies people painstakingly worked on, detailing the puzzling and as of yet unknown reason wish granting had never been a talent present in powerful leaders before, and idly, sleepily wonders if she’ll be the first. She shakes the thought out of her head. It’s ego. One first rank based on a well-meaning disaster does not mean she’ll be tracked as a leader and become loved and — lord forbid — _powerful_ in future.

If her first day of classes is anything to go by, it means she has a lot to learn, and she can’t just make assumptions. She needs to know what she’s coming up against and how to outdo the other girls intent on getting her failed.

Agatha leaves a note on the library desk apologising for exceeding the six-books-maximum limit, but promising they’ll all be returned in a timely fashion, very soon.

* * *

The beautiful, blonde Nevergirl is the only one below Forest Group 3’s flag when Agatha gets there after Good Deeds. In comparison to her other classes, Good Deeds is so incredibly more Agatha’s speed. It’s less about looking perfect and being perfect, and more about how your actions make you who you are. Plus, it’s taught by Professor Dovey who seems to have a soft spot for her, currently, and Tedros sits by her, now, being one of the only co-ed classes the School for Good has.

“So, you’re a Reader?” Agatha broaches, trying to make polite conversation with the beautiful, blonde Nevergirl. The girl’s expression changes.

“Yes. And you’re not. I know everyone in town, and I would have remembered someone so... _jarring.”_ Agatha blanches and takes a step back, somewhat alarmed by the immediate dislike of her this girl has seemingly just decided she has. The girl advances even so. “I’m serious, this is _ridiculous._ This has got to be trick. Or a prank. Is it a prank? I won’t be mad. Or, maybe I will, I’ve had a rough last few days, but if you apologise right now I might think about forgiving you. Because, let’s be honest here, you’re obviously not a princess. I mean, look at you. I obviously am, so I’d really appreciate it, darling, if you’d just give the joke up, now.”

“Huh?” Is all Agatha can manage to get out, bewildered by this girl. She’s obviously delusional, but can Agatha really blame her? Apparently, Reader students are kidnapped from their beds, and not even told which school they’ll end up at, so maybe she had preconceived notions about the school she’d be attending.

Agatha did too, so she sympathises. Then, the girl steps forward again, rolling her eyes, “Let me tell you something, Elphaba,” she hisses, and Agatha blinks, surprised that the name of a once-powerful witch is being used as an insult, “I have been kidnapped, almost eaten by one of those bone-bird things, dumped in a sludge moat, yelled at, belittled, stuck in a room with three mean and ugly witches, and forced to dress in this _sack,_ even though it’s quite clear there’s been a mistake. You can tell me where they went wrong. It’s obvious.”

Agatha trips over a root, and the girl looms over her, menacingly. She gets it now. Looks aren’t everything. This girl has mastered the art of intimidation. She’s certainly evil.

“Give me your clothes, you’re in my school,” she says, all venom and perfume mixed together like a childs imitation of a soup, and she begins to pull at the buttons on Agatha’s blouse, hurriedly. “They won’t notice if we switch now, and you’ll be nice and at home in rags, I’m sure.”

Agatha begins to splutter when she’s suddenly helped from the ground by strong arms. She looks up and Tedros winks at her. “Is there a reason you seem to be robbing my friend?” He asks her assailant, still with a pleasant look on his face.

The blonde Nevergirl’s eyes widen. “You _know_ each other?” And it’s clear what kind of esteem she holds Agatha in, if she’s surprised the Good prince of Camelot would befriend a weird-looking Ever from Bloodbrook.

“For your information, we’re friends,” Agatha replies, pulling roughly away from Tedros’ grip and dusting herself off, a red rash spreading down her neck. She’s still not used to him touching her and being nice to her. It’s only been a day, but she’s already looking out for him everywhere.

“And if you’ll kindly abstain from taking her clothes, I might endeavour to avoid telling the Dean about this,” Tedros finishes for her, fixing the strap on her pinafore. “There’s already been too much drama for three days at school.”

“But I’m in the _wrong school!”_ The Nevergirl cries, looking incredibly wounded. “Please, you have to understand I’m Good! _And_ I’m pretty! I’ll fit in really well here!” At their dubious looks, she seems to grow angry, and points at Agatha in a rage, face red, yelling, “You know I’m right! _She_ looks like a _witch!”_

Agatha flinches back from the insults, doing up the buttons the blonde had managed to get undone. Tedros looks just about ready to fight the girl when a sudden voice groans, “Oh, you’ve _got_ to be kidding me.”

The three turn and see Beatrix, Dot, Hort, and Millicent, along with nine others that Agatha doesn’t recognise. Dot and Hort look conflicted at the sight of her, but they were always the softest of the group. Maybe if she can get through to them, making up with Hester and Anadil will be easier.

A gnome trundles past them, surveys them, and says, “Bad group,” and then trundles on again. They all flail to follow.

The blue forest is beautiful, but just like Hort, Dot, and the five other Never’s who had sense (the blonde who tried to steal her clothes is exempt for obvious reasons), she watches the canopy, carefully. They point out Stymph nests to each other.

The blonde looks terrified every time a new one is spotted. “But one of those tried to eat me!” She cries, looking afraid. Agatha’s kind of impressed by the range of her acting.

Dot elbows the girl in the ribs and says, “They’re only active at night. You’ll be fine unless you wake them. Then they _will_ eat you.”

The gnome, Yuba, reviews for them the rules that distinguish Good and Evil from each other (ones Agatha had been aware of since beginning her feverish studying, so as not to fail) and begins an exercise on recognising Good and Evil while they’re disguised. Ever’s and Nevers disguised as unicorns, cobras, and squirrels are brought forth towards other students, and tested for Good or Evil.

Agatha neglects the task, and tries to get near Dot and Hort, who skillfully dodge her and ignore her whispers for their attention. She’s so absentminded that when Yuba asks for volunteers for Tedros, she doesn’t even notice he’s calling her up. She gets dirty looks from Beatrix and Millicent as she passes, and finds herself standing next to the blonde Never who tried to steal her clothes while Tedros puts on a blindfold. “I’m sorry if I was rude to you, earlier,” Agatha says to her, in an attempt to broker a peace with the other girl.

The blonde huffs, tossing her long, luxurious hair, “I don’t want to be your friend, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I wasn’t—” and then she sighs. As if she’d expected forgiveness from this ruthless girl. She really was foolish. “I just didn’t want any bad blood.”

“There _will_ be bad blood if you get between me and Tedros,” the girl tells her, venomously, and then flashes her a perfect smile. “This is my chance to prove once and for all that I’m Good. Then he’ll realise I’m his princess, and you’re a witch and they’ll switch us.”

“Do you really believe that? You’re just a bit bonkers, aren’t you,” Agatha mutters to herself, and hopes the girl won’t hear.

Yuba turns them into hobgoblins, and Tedros takes off his blindfold only to stare at them. Agatha watches the blonde Nevergirl, now in hobgoblin form, perform some sort of flirtatious dance, and sing a little bit, and she cringes away from the act. Tedros, too, looks affronted by the display.

“Ah, well,” he says, after a moment, glancing between them both. Agatha just shrugs at him. Sophie jumps in front of her, trying to keep his attention. She’s singing something that must sound like garbled gibberish to him, but is crystal clear to her as _I’m a pretty princess, sweet as a pea..._ Agatha really wonders if this Never girl believes she’s good. “I’m pretty sure that Agatha wouldn’t try to flirt with me, whether she was a hobgoblin or not,” Tedros looks back at Yuba for approval. “So, I’d say this one’s Evil.”

Sophie gapes when she realises he’s pointing at her. Then she turns murderous. “You’ve tricked him!” she screams, and launches herself at Agatha, who narrowly avoids her by tripping over a rock in her attempted escape. That doesn’t stop the blonde from grabbing onto her leg to heave herself up Agatha’s body, which makes her scream, too.

“Well done, Tedros,” Yuba says over the screaming hobgoblin din, and they transform back to humans. The blonde pulls her hair, turns her over, and then clutches her throat in a threatening manner, squeezing incredibly tight in a successful attempt to cut off her airways. Their audience gasps at this turn of events, and Agatha sees, out of the corner of her eye, Tedros watching wide eyed, obviously unsure of how to help.

Agatha, holding the blonde’s wrist as she presses down on her throat, gurgles, “This isn’t very forgiving of you, now, is it?”

Then she knees the blonde in the belly and rolls away when she howls and falls to the side. Dot helps her back to her feet when she reaches the group, gasping for breath, red in the face, all muddy and scraped up. The blonde is crying on the ground in her rags, her makeup running. “Did you see that?” She sobs, and the group watches her in concern and shock. “She attacked me! She must be evil! She hurt me!”

“You forget _you_ attacked _her_ first,” pipes up one of the Everboy’s near the back.

“Correct,” Yuba agrees. “Sophie, you’ve exhibited many exemplary Evil behaviours this afternoon, in a very short span of time. For that you would normally be commended, however attacking another student is against the rules, and for _that,_ I’m afraid you must be punished.”

“NO!” Sophie, the blonde Never wails. “NO, SHE’S A WITCH! SHE’S TRICKING YOU ALL!”

“Can I go back to my room?” Agatha asks the gnome quietly, so as not to overshadow Sophie’s little show. “I feel a little faint.”

“Of course. Tedros, please take Agatha back to her room. Class is dismissed.” Their ranks explode over their heads, Tedros holding first (probably for recognising Evil), Sophie second (probably for her Evil Behaviour Exhibition), and Agatha third (probably for her defensive moves during Sophie’s attack). She sees Hort and Dot on the lower end of the spectrum, but breathes a sigh of relief that they’re spared from having bottom ranks. She and Tedros walk wordlessly back to the castle.

“She wants to be your princess, you know,” she says as they approach her door.

“Who?” Tedros questions, brushing some dirt off her shoulder, and then pulling a crumpled blue leaf from her hair. He doesn’t look very interested in the subject. “Beatrix? Yeah, I know.”

“No, Sophie. The Never who attacked me,” Agatha clarifies, taking the leaf from his hand. “She told me she’s going to prove to you she’s your princess and that I’m a witch.”

He snorts, “Yeah, well, good luck with that.” They reach her door and he takes her arm gently, turning her towards him. “Let me look at your neck.”

“It’s nothing,” Agatha responds, trying to bat him away as he tips her chin up, not used to kindness at this rate and consistency. The look he gives her throat is not a good one, and still she says, weakly, “She barely got me.”

“It’s enough to go to Professor Dovey about,” Tedros tells her, seriously, releasing her. Agatha wonders why he’s so worried about it. “She attacked you _twice_ today. You’ve got to get better at protecting yourself.”

“How?” she demands, suddenly fed up. It’s bad enough she looks like a Never and doesn’t seem to know what she’s doing, but now she has a necklace of bruises from a girl who’s after Tedros, her only friend, for his hand in marriage and his kingdom. “It’s not like they teach _us_ Swordplay. We have _Beautification,_ and _Princess Etiquette_ and stuff like _that._ I don’t think your Swordplay teacher would take kindly to a Never-look-alike who set the school on fire on her first day, asking to join a boys-only class.”

“Then _don’t_ ask him to help you,” Tedros says, and glances around at the hall now filling up with whispering Evergirl’s all watching them with interest. He lowers his voice, bending his head down towards hers. _“I’ll_ help you. I’ll _teach_ you. Here, before curfew, we’ll go up to the roof and I’ll teach you some self defence moves.”

“You really think that’s gonna help?” Agatha murmurs, aware of the curious looks now becoming jealous and affronted. She’ll certainly be the center of the gossip mill once more. _Butt-Ugly Evergirl Enthralls Camelot’s Heir, Read More Page 16!_ “She probably has magic powers we don’t know about, yet. She might be able to strangle me without actually touching me.” 

“Maybe she can,” he allows, diplomatically, “but it’s worth trying. If she comes at you, physically again, you could surprise her with a jab to the nose, you never know.”

She sighs, but she’s smiling, despite herself. “You really want to do this.”

Tedros draw back a little, hands up, “If you don’t want to—”

Agatha puts her hand on his arm, drawing him back in, surprised at her own forwardness, and sighs, “It’s really nice that you’re so concerned about me.” Despite only having known him a day or two, it’s so easy to just touch him and be near him. It feels like they’ve been friends for years, already.

“You’re my friend, Agatha, and I just watched you get strangled. Of course I’m going to be concerned.” She realises just how close they are, but her grip on his arm doesn’t loosen. “Think of this as _Surviving Fairytales Part Two._ I teach you how to fend off your attackers and you can give me cool bruises when you get good enough to get in a good hit.”

She laughs. She doesn’t mean to, but she does. “Alright then,” Agatha agrees, once the giggles have subsided. Her throat hurts a little and her voice is getting a little croaky so she says, “Not tonight, though. I need to sleep.”

The hilarity disappears from Tedros’ face as he asks, “And you’re sure you don’t want to go to Professor Dovey about this? You have some rock solid evidence and more than a dozen witnesses.”

“I want to give her another chance.”

“Ah—“

“The Good forgive, Tedros,” Agatha reminds him. “Would I be able to justify being here if I didn’t try?”

He puts a hand over her own, holding her palm against his arm for a moment longer as he says, “You’re going to get hurt.”

“Maybe,” she agrees, quietly, and then draws away completely, a little uncomfortable at the easiness of his touch. “I’ll see you later.”

“See you, Agatha,” he says, and begins to walk away, through a hallway of half-closed doors and girls whispering in doorways. Agatha goes to her room, shutting the door fast behind her, and finds the first mirror in sight, uncovering it.

The fingers imprinted above her clavicle look almost painted there, deepening in colour even as she watches. It’s going to look really bad tomorrow. She groans and collapses on her bed, still fully clothed. That’s a problem for tomorrow. She kind of hopes Professor Anemone will have pity on her, being the Beautification teacher, and lend her some concealer or something.

* * *

Agatha has a strange dream that night.

_Once upon a time there were two girls. Lost in a strange land, the girls were searching for answers and solutions. Stupid girls! They did not yet understand their situations._

She wakes to the sensation of being stabbed on the pad of her index finger with a pen, but when she inspects it, there was no blood and no injury. She soon forgets what the dream had detailed and fell back into a restless sleep.


	2. this is what i want to talk about

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Agatha cocks her head, considering the proposal, “You want me to be your safety-date?”
> 
> “In a manner of speaking,” he agrees, shrugging. “It’s the sensible thing to do, I think. But also I’d never forgive myself if you ended up failing, just because I thought you’d be alright on your own.”
> 
> “Oh, please,” she snorts, waving a dismissive hand, “me failing an assessment is none of your concern.”
> 
> “How many times, Agatha?” Tedros sighs, kicking her shin. “You’re my friend; I don’t want to see you fail any more than I want to fail.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from Historians by Lucy Dacus (it's gonna be this way for the rest of the fic unless I have more chapter than lyrics, in which case I will let you know haha)
> 
> Admittedly, this chapter, last chapter, and the two that will come after this one were meant to be one big chapter, which is why it might read a little stream-of-consciousness at some points (especially in the breaks between chapters). At the point at which I'm writing this (Oct 28th) we have five confirmed chapters and it's also the longest thing I have ever written in my life (by myself, that is).
> 
> Hope you like this chapter, it's got some real winning stuff in it :)

Agatha sits to the side after fainting during dance lessons in Princess Etiquette. She really didn’t mean to. It’s just that after a few days of more stress than she’s ever felt in her life, and a very strange diet — from the decadence of Ever meals, to the uncooked vegetables for prisoners who almost burned down the schools — some fuse just blew and she ended up on the floor.

Kiko, the short-haired girl who confided in her about the ball being a kind of kill-or-be-killed final assessment, also lended her some concealer for her neck, so while she fainted, at least she doesn’t look utterly abused. Doesn’t stop the girls from talking behind their hands and glancing in her direction with giggles for company, but it could be worse. For one, Beatrix could be laughing along.

Instead she looks at Agatha, sitting dejected to the side, with concern _(concern?)_ and curiosity. Like she _actually cares._ But then again, Agatha’s been tricked by her kind face before. The girls dance and Agatha leans back heavily on the couch, eyes drooping. She hasn’t slept well since leaving Bloodbrook, either broken by garish dreams or hunger pangs, restless from crying, or deliberately avoided to advance her studying. Allowing herself to sleep now might get her in trouble, but at least she’ll have the energy to put up with it.

“Oh, it’s you again,” says a soft, jolly-sounding voice, and Agatha’s eyes snap open. She’s not in the Valor common room anymore. She’s sitting on a cloud, again, next to the old man with the long beard. He smiles softly at her. “I see you’ve found your way back. I wasn’t sure that you would, given how suddenly you came and went last time."

“Where am I?” Agatha questions, suspiciously. It’s not possible she was kidnapped from the school in that short time she’d closed her eyes for? But, no, she’s been here before. “Who are you?”

“This is the Celestium. I come here to think, a lot, when the world moves too fast for me. This moves just right.” The old man sighs, and leans back on the cloud. Agatha crosses her legs underneath her, suddenly more awake than ever. “I didn’t think anyone else could get in here without invitation besides me, but here you’ve gone proving me wrong, twice now.”

He grins at her, but Agatha presses on, “And...where _is_ it?”

“Physically? In my cape. But literally it’s sort of a pocket world. It isn’t really anywhere.”

“Strange,” she says, looking around. It’s night here — or, at least, so high in the air she can watch the stars undisturbed. Her voice is really croaky, so she clears her throat, but it’s to no avail, “And you don’t know how I got here?”

“Not a clue, my dear girl,” the old man says, nonchalant. It’s so like her to stumble out of a problem right into one needing to be solved. Of course she can access a pocket world at will, but mostly when she’s stressed out and tired; now, and in the dress shop.

“Well then,” Agatha says, and leans back as well, unwilling to let a moment she could be relaxing go by without taking advantage of it. “Yet another mystery to solve.”

The old man is silent for a long while, as they stared out at the stars, winking like light through holes in some parchment paper. Eventually he clears his throat and notes, “I see you’re in the School for Good uniform. Is that where you are, right now?”

“Yes,” she answers softly, feeling incredibly at peace. She feels she could fall into a deep sleep here and when she woke up she could deal with anything the school threw at her. “Avoiding dance lessons. I’m not very good at it, quite yet.”

“I suppose I should tell you that improvement comes from experience,” the old man sighs and then smiles at her, adding, “but you don’t look quite up to dancing at the moment.”

“I’m inclined to agree with you,” Agatha snorts.

“You’re a first year?”

“Yep. Five days in, I believe, and you’d never believe the mess I’ve made.”

“Oh, do tell me,” he says, eagerly. “I was quite the troublemaker there, back in my day.”

“Nearly burnt down the castle by causing an animal stampede, got attacked by a Nevergirl yesterday, destroyed a garden, and probably made quite a few enemies in the process,” she ticks off on her fingers, feeling his amusement roll off him in waves. It’s the first time she’s felt anything but shame come with telling those stories.

“Well, I do hope you have friends to help you out, as well,” the old man prompts her, bumping their shoulders together.

“Just one for now.” Agatha remembers Kiko, who helped her cover the bruises on her neck. She touches them gingerly and amends, “Maybe two.”

“Oh yes?”

“Yeah.” She smiles a little, thinking of him yesterday, leading her back to her room. “He wants to teach me self defence because I got attacked by that Nevergirl. His name’s Tedros — and I know what you’re thinking. Yes, _that_ Tedros.”

“Oh.” The old man suddenly sounds far-off. Agatha turns to look at him, and his expression is lost at sea, looking empty and sad. “Does he look like his father?” He asks, softly.

“I...don’t know?” Agatha answers, slowly, feeling as though she’s seeing something she shouldn’t. “Did you _know_ King Arthur or something?”

This seems to shake him out of his fog, because he suddenly brightens, smiling again, “Just went to school with him. His portrait should be up somewhere. Give it a look and let me know next time you’re here.”

Agatha sits up, frowning a little, “You know, you’ve never told me your name.”

“Well, I suppose I could tell you,” he says, cheekily, “but that would spoil my fun, now, wouldn’t it?”

“Oh, it might,” Agatha agrees, and puts on a pondering look, “It would still be _nice,_ though. Then when I send a letter to my mother tomorrow, I can say I have maybe three friends.”

“You’d count me as a friend?” He sounds bewildered, and a little bit touched.

She snorts, “You’ve been much nicer to me than _half_ the Evergirl’s have.”

“I know the type,” the old man says, rolling his eyes. “They see anyone not conventionally beautiful and they decide that makes them lesser. The only thing to do is carry on. If they’re rude or mean that just means they’re not half as Good as they make out to be and that makes you the bigger person.”

Agatha stares, stunned at him, and at his inquisitive look, she mumbles, “Surprisingly introspective.”

He shrugs, “I had an Evergirl friend, too.”

“I’m Agatha,” she finally relents, holding out her hand for him to shake.

“Mordred,” he replies, shaking firmly.

“That’s a fun name.”

“It is.”

Agatha snaps awake a second later, almost as if sleeping in Mordred’s Celestium is his form of waking up in the real world. She catches Beatrix watching her again, and she looks away when Agatha meets her eyes, loudly whispering that she heard the fairies say someone tried to break into the School Master’s tower last night.

And isn’t _that_ food for thought.

* * *

Sophie walks up to her at lunch. Everyone watches her do it, too.

She crosses the thick, invisible line drawn between the Ever’s and Never’s — and it’s frankly very nice to know it _can_ be crossed — making a beeline for Agatha, sitting alone beneath a large oak tree, and reading ravenously about beginner incantations. Sophie stops right in front of her. Agatha looks up at her, mouth full of rampion salad.

“Cab I help ‘ou?” She asks, words garbled. Sophie stares down at her, an almost murderous look clouding her features. She’s holding on tight to a black pail that Agatha saw every other Never holding as well.

The look clears and she smiles, sweetly. “I need your help,” says her two-time attacker. Agatha swallows, wondering where Tedros has gotten to. He’s not anywhere in sight.

In his absence she gestures to the spot of lush grass in front of her. “Make yourself comfortable,” she says, and closes her book, her fork as her bookmark. Sophie plunks herself down and sets down the pail so hard all the gruel inside of it spills out as it tips over. She cringes away from it, pinching her nose, Agatha just sighs. She’s certainly eaten worse, so she can’t imagine what this girl was fed on a daily basis back in her Reader town. Probably the same quality as Agatha’s lunch of smoked trout sandwiches with rampion salad and strawberry souffles, if her reaction to the gruel is anything to go by.

“Thank the lord, I don’t know how anyone expects me to sit with those stinky, rude witches for lunch,” Sophie sighs, kicking the pail away daintily, and gesturing vaguely at a group of Never’s. Hester is glaring at them both. Agatha looks down in shame.

“Some of those _stinky, rude witches_ are my _friends.”_ She replies, testily, suddenly not feeling so hungry

“Goodness, really?” Sophie looks mildly surprised for a moment before her expression clears. “I suppose that’s makes sense, given your attitude, but I simply don’t know _how_ you stand them—“

“What was it you wanted?” Agatha interrupts, now wishing she didn’t interact, if just out of solidarity with the Coven. “And _don’t_ say my sandwich, because I know I’m supposed to be generous, but I’m not that fond of you, currently.”

“Why on earth not?” She blinks, owlishly, in confusion, as if she can’t remember a single thing she’s done wrong.

Agatha plays with the hem of her pinafore and broaches, “Do you remember how yesterday you _strangled_ me?”

“Goodness, are you still angry about that?” And then Sophie actually laughs, like it’s the funniest thing she’s ever heard. Agatha just stares at her in disbelief. “I wasn’t _actually_ trying to kill you.”

She pauses for a moment before replying so she can reign in her rage. There’s no way she actually thinks it’s funny, right? “Sure, but that wasn’t very _Good_ of you, in any sense of the word,” Agatha tells her, slowly, hoping Sophie will pick up on the _I’m Talking To You As I Would A Child With No Experience In The World_ tone she’s putting on. “And _neither_ is the fact that you don’t seem remorseful about it, despite how you suddenly need my help.”

“Oh, well, I’m sorry.” Sophie says, quickly, and then peers at Agatha’s lunch basket. “Can I have your sandwich?”

“I _just said_ — you know what, you can have half of it will _appease_ you.” Agatha whips out her butter knife and basically almost yanks the thing apart, dumping one half in Sophie’s hand. “Now, what do you want?”

“Giff me a fecond,” Sophie mumbles through a bite of her sandwich. Agatha takes a brief look around. Everyone’s staring at them, even the wolves. Kiko’s looking like she wishes she hadn’t been nice to Agatha. That’s fine.

Agatha waits as patiently as she can for Sophie to finish her mouthful, very clearly not making eye contact with the scandalised Evers and Nevers just over Sophie’s shoulder. This is so going in a letter; her mother will love the drama of it all.

“So,” Sophie begins with a flourish, gesturing with her half of the sandwich, “after yesterday’s _disagreement,_ I decided to take control in the only way I know how, and that was to go all the way to the top.”

“The top?”

“Of the chain of authority! The boss, obviously!” Sophie rolls her eyes in a dignified manner and continues, “In any case, I crept out of my damp dorm room, antagonised one of those boney birds, and broke into the School Master’s tower for a bit of a chat.”

 _“You WHAT?”_ Agatha cries, eyes bulging. Hadn’t Pollux said that was impossible?

Sophie frowns, affronted at Agatha’s volume, “Come now, really — if he didn’t want visitors he shouldn’t have his window open all the time.”

“You _broke into the tower?”_

“It’s not breaking in if I literally just flew in through the window, darling.”

Agatha glances over Sophie’s shoulder again. A lot of people have gone back to what they were doing, but more still glance over at them suspiciously. “What does this have to do with me?” She asks.

“Just you wait,” Sophie prefaces with a grin. “Anyway, we had a chat, I asked him to swap us into our actual schools, he said _no, what’s done is done, blah blah blah,_ I asked—“

“You asked him to swap me and you?” She can’t help interrupting, nor can she help the incredulous tone she uses, because honestly the _nerve_ of this girl is startling.

“Yes,” she agrees, looking quite put out to have been stopped one again. “How many times? We’re in the wrong schools, quite obviously. I would have hoped you’d caught up by now. Hester says you grew up with them anyway, so you’d be right at home.”

“But I—“

“I asked him to send me home then.”

Agatha waits during Sophie’s sobered pause for more. None comes. “Did you,” she prompts, dryly.

“I said if I can’t go to the School for Good I don’t want to be here, and I’ll certainly fail in the School for Evil, so send me home,” Sophie says, shuffling awkwardly. She takes a dainty bite of the sandwich, chewing and swallowing before she says rather seriously, “He said he could have, but not anymore.”

“Why not?” Agatha inquires, eyebrows narrowed.

“Well, this is where it gets tricky,” she admits, looking vaguely bashful. “You see, in the School Master’s tower, he has this magic pen—“

“—the Storian,” Agatha corrects.

“—yes, _that_ thing, and when I asked to go home, it started _writing.”_

If it were possible, her eyebrows draw together even more in suspicious and curiosity. “Writing _what?”_

“That’s the thing,” Sophie bites her lip, softly. “I don’t know your name, right? Never asked, did I? And no one could have said it in my hearing.”

Agatha protests this strange conversation jump, “Except Hester—“

“Hester calls you _the traitor_ or _that bitch.”_ Sophie informs her.

“Then I suppose that’s true,” she replies, deflating a little. “I mean, _Yuba_ said it a few times in Forest Group yesterday, but you were a bit preoccupied.”

“Indeed,” she agrees, “In any case, the Storian began to write _The Tale of Sophie and Agatha.”_

Agatha stares at her.

“That’s you, right?” Sophie asks, eagerly, smiling like she’s uncovered a huge mystery.

“How could you possibly know that?” Agatha asks her, incredulous. It could still be a cruel trick, but she’s honestly putting in so much effort Agatha’s inclined to believe her, anyway.

“It drew you, asleep in your — frankly _gaudy_ looking — bed.” Agatha frowns as Sophie gets sidetracked once more. She notices her expression and gets back on course, quickly, _“Anyway,_ School Master says that now it’s writing our story, I can’t leave, or I’d suffer the consequences, so I’m stuck here.”

“Okay, so wait,” Agatha leans forward, lowering her voice, “you need my help because the Storian is writing a tale about us?”

“Oh, no, I just thought you’d find that interesting,” Sophie laughs, shrugging, and now Agatha is more lost than before. Really this girl needs to learn how to get straight to the point. “Dot says once the Storian begins your story it can’t stop, and once a story is being written, things start to get dangerous, so, you know, look out? What I need your help with is a riddle.”

“A riddle? What does _that_ have to do—?”

“The School Master said he’d only send me home with the story still being written if I could answer this riddle; _what’s the one thing Evil can never have, and the one thing that Good can never do without?”_ They mull in silence for a minute and Sophie rocks back and forth on her haunches, expectantly. “I figured as the second protagonist you’d have some input.”

“I—“ Agatha begins, and then spies movement from the Ever side of the clearing. It’s Tedros, talking quietly to the gray-eyed boy who is sitting by Beatrix and her clique. They’re all frowning and glancing in Agatha’s direction. Tedros meets her eyes and his expression softens.

 _Are you okay?_ He mouths, clearly. Agatha just nods in return. She turns back to Sophie who’s peering over her shoulder at the group of Ever’s Agatha was just watching. She looks whimsical and sad.

“You really just wanted to be there,” she says, finally understanding Sophie’s plight.  
  
“I don’t know why I’m not,” and for the first time since she met her, Sophie sounds subdued, and somewhat defeated. “I would never say I was malicious. Sometimes I think mean things, but I almost never act on them.” There’s something in her tone, something in the sad look on her face that reminds Agatha incredibly of herself. She seems too familiar to her, far too familiar. She looks at Agatha, green eyes wide with curiosity, “Would you say you were Good?”

Agatha pauses, looking down at her hands. She wouldn’t have, only a few weeks ago. She would have said she was the greyest version of Evil there was, just trying to get by, just hoping no one bothered her or the village so she could live her life, blissfully free of the constant struggle between Good and Evil. But wanting a fine life, wanting something simple, and not aspiring for more — be it fortune, fame or power — wasn’t that inherently good? Just wanting what’s best for you and the ones you love?

“I think…” she says, quietly, watching Sophie picking at her strawberry souffle. “That it’s difficult to know for sure. Proof of this kind of thing only comes through actions and intentions.”  
  
“Okay, you’re being far too eloquent,” Sophie snaps, sadness disappearing a moment later, leaving behind a slickly pleasant expression. She stands, Agatha’s souffle in hand, and says, “If you come up with an answer to the riddle, just let me know in Forest Group. And, if you could, let Tedros know he looks cute today, from me.”

With that, she crosses back over to Evil, and Agatha stares after her, wondering why the Storian and the powers-that-be would write a story about her and a disappointed witch-girl.

* * *

Tedros sits by her in Good Deeds and ignores Beatrix’s attempts to get his attention throughout the lesson, instead trading snide remarks back and forth with Agatha. They’re in the middle of a lecture about how important it is to complete good deeds for selfless reasons when a bout of screaming erupts from across the moat. The students all look up, startled. There’s roaring too. It sounds like every Never in the next castle over is fighting.

“Um, back to what I was saying—” Professor Dovey says, tentatively, trying to get back on track, but no one’s listening. Agatha creeps from her seat to the window, looking out at the looming black Evil castle. A couple other curious Evers join her as they watch for any sign of trouble coming their way. Agatha’s mind wanders to Hester and Dot, wondering if they’re alright.

“What’s going on?” she asks, turning to Professor Dovey.

The older lady purses her lips, in an attempt to look unworried by the strange development, despite the fear in her eyes. “It’s nothing of importance, I’m sure—”

Just as suddenly as it started, the screaming cuts off, suddenly, leaving both the castle and the classroom eerily silent. Agatha’s breath catches in her throat. _What could have happened?_

“I’m sure Lady Lesso has it all under control, students,” Dovey cuts across her thoughts, gesturing away from the window. Tedros is watching her with a frown. She wishes he didn’t constantly worry about her. She wonders how in so little time she’s managed to mess up so often that he has to feel constantly on guard for her. “Now, back to your seats. You too, Agatha.”  
  
“But my friends are in there!” Agatha protests. “What if something’s happened to them—?”

“You’re not the only one with friends there,” Dovey snaps, suddenly. Then she softens and says with a smile, “I’m sure they’re fine. Now, back to your seat.”

Agatha obeys, reluctantly, still gazing at the window. It’s been less than an hour since she spoke to Sophie. She wonders if in that time she’s managed to cause even more trouble. She thinks it’s quite likely, given her track record. She doesn’t pay attention to any more of the class.

* * *

(The answer becomes evident when they get to Forest Group, only two hours later. Dot and Hort wander in, looking worse for wear, and so do the rest of the Never’s. Agatha begs them to tell her what happened, until Dot cracks, whispering, “There was a fight. Sophie told one too many people that she’d seen the School Master and the teachers called an assembly. She caused a riot and got sent to the Doom Room.”

“What—“

“Please, if Hester finds out I talked to you, I’ll be sleeping in the toilets for the rest of term.”

When Sophie finally turns up, her once lucious waterfall of golden hair is cut into a ragged, angled bob, and her face is a mess of running make-up and tears. Her wrists bear ugly chafing and blood from manacles she obviously struggled to get out of, and the expression she wears is one of stoic mourning. Agatha doesn’t ask if she’s okay, because all the Never’s beat her to it, and honestly if all she said at lunch is true, that means Agatha’s slightly to blame for Sophie’s trip to the Doom Room and her impromptu haircut.

She doesn’t speak to Sophie for the whole class, not even as they stand in the Garden of Good and Evil, watching coffin after coffin enter graves, and Sophie turns towards her, an expression of realisation on her face, fist full of meerworms.

Agatha assumes she’ll find a way to tell her later. She doesn’t want to interact for now, just to be sure Sophie won’t be punished again.)

* * *

The next morning, an invitation to the Snow Ball has been slipped under her door. Agatha is aware of the ball, has been since getting her acceptance letter, and still it instills fear and panic into her. She fumbles through her classes, barely scraping by, and knowing if she continues on like this she’s going to be an enchanted daisy to be trampled on in her fourth year.

Ball etiquette, Ball entrances, Ball history, it feels like the month before a huge exam — which she guesses it kind of is — only the boys seem completely disinterested and the girls scurry around with their invitations, fawning and dreaming. Agatha knows she needs a date to even pass the assessment, but how she’d manage to convince an Everboy to even consider her as their date seems near-impossible—

“I want to propose a plan,” announces Tedros as he seats himself in front of her. Agatha lowers her etiquette textbook, and moves her notebook. Pollux set her extra written homework for her dismal performance in class, and she really doesn’t want to add it to her own, independent studies after curfew, so she’s trying to get it done now.

“Enlighten me,” she replies, dryly. They have smoked salmon and poached egg sandwiches for lunch, accompanied by two chocolate macarons for a little extra dessert, so when he immediately steals one, Agatha slaps his hand, mostly joking but also a little put out by the disappearance of sweets. It ends up in his mouth, anyway.

“I’m not interested in being hounded by every girl within sight to be their Ball date,” Tedros begins, through his mouthful of macaron, and Agatha makes a grossed out face that he returns with a rude hand gesture, “and I’m sure you’re already running statistics in your head of how likely each boy is to ask you, right?”

“Very astute,” Agatha allows, and then gruffly adds, “You owe me your dessert tomorrow.”  
  
“We’ll see,” Tedros says, waving it away, disinterested. “I’m sure you don’t want to live in that kind of suspense, so what I’m thinking is we should make a pact to go together, if no other, more preferable option turns up.”

Agatha cocks her head, considering the proposal, “You want me to be your safety-date?”

“In a manner of speaking,” he agrees, shrugging. “It’s the sensible thing to do, I think. But also I’d never forgive myself if you ended up failing, just because I thought you’d be alright on your own.”

“Oh, please,” she snorts, waving a dismissive hand, “me failing an assessment is none of your concern.”  
  
“How many times, Agatha?” Tedros sighs, kicking her shin. She returns the gesture much harder, which she thinks might have devolved into a full kicking fight if Tedros didn’t have as much self control as he does. “You’re my _friend;_ I don’t want to see _you_ fail any more than _I_ want to fail.”

Agatha considers it all. He’s right; she’s frightened no one will ask and she’ll fail despite her best efforts. And if she’s totally honest, managing to swoop in and steal the golden boy out of every other girl’s grasp is a tempting one, especially because she knows they’ll all want him as their date. “And this is all for strategic purposes?” She probes, already having made up her mind.  
  
“Of course,” he agrees, picking at the grass and sifting what comes away between his fingers, distractedly. “We’ll keep it to ourselves. The Everboys have all decided they’re officially asking their dates to the Ball on the evening of the Circus of Talents, so we won’t let anyone know until then, unless some other boy decides to ask you.”

Agatha cocks her head, curious, prompting, “In which case?”  
  
“You take precedence,” Tedros responds, easily, not really fussed about it, “after all, it’s your grade in the balance. If someone else asks you, I have plenty of backups.”  
  
She snorts, “That is _so_ arrogant of you — at the same time as being really sweet.”  
  
He shrugs in response, informing her, “You’re like the only girl here not falling over herself to talk to me.”  
  
“That’s because I talk to you on a regular basis and you have nothing good to say, so I just put up with you when you open your mouth.”

Tedros claps a hand over his heart, gaping dramatically. “Oh, that _hurts,_ Agatha; that _r_ _eally stings._ Tell me what you _really_ think, why don’t you?” He mutinously steals her other macaron, stuffing it in his mouth before she can stop him. Agatha tackles him, laughing, calling him a scoundrel and a thief. He attempts to fight her off, but she can tell he’s not really trying, because he’s heavier than her and stronger than her, and he still ends up on his back as she sits victoriously on his belly.

“You owe me dessert for a week, now,” Agatha tells him, throwing his hands out of her grip and climbing off of him, ignoring the stares and whispers they’ve garnered. “And if you’re done distracting me, you can still sit here, but quietly. I’m answering textbook questions and that takes _a lot_ of concentration.”  
  
Tedros sits up, grass in his hair and picks up her textbook, considering it carefully. “What if I read the questions out to you?” He asks, flipping through it. “Would that make it faster?”  
  
“Well, sure, if _that’s_ how you want to spend lunch.” And it _is_ faster, and _way_ more fun, which is kind of sweet. Pollux pulls a face when she hands him her homework notes, all finished, only a few hours after setting it, and Agatha feels quite smug, all the way through Good Deeds, which is probably the only class she isn’t actively doing badly in. She thinks it’s because Dovey has a soft spot for her. She’s not about to take that for granted.

* * *

Self defence lessons go fine. Except from the fact that Agatha and Tedros have a hard time finding somewhere not littered with pointy statues, or dangerously close to the balcony to actually practice self defence.

“You know, if you weren’t failing, you’d have Groom Room privileges and we could just train there,” Tedros tells her as he adjusts her stance.

Agatah blows some hair out of her face and frowns. “I’m _not failing,”_ she protests, stoically ignoring the chuckle he replies with. “I’m _incredibly average._ There’s nothing wrong with that.”  
  
“Sure,” Tedros allows and rounds her, once more, glancing at her skinny arms as she holds her fists up by her forehead. He said they’d start with some basics today, like protecting the head and face, and maybe move onto boxing or something if she was any good and-slash-or interested _._ He said it was good to start there since _most villains go for the face first because they think we’re too vain to actually worry about anything else. Then once they’ve gotten in damage to the face, it’s basically free reign._ “If you don’t mind being tracked as a follower.”

“I don’t,” Agatha informs him from behind her raised fists.

“Yes, well, _you’re_ not the future king of Camelot, so I suppose you don’t have the same amount of pressure as I do.” He sounds a little put upon, and adopts his own fighting stance. _“You_ get to pick and choose what your future is, whereas mine is... _woefully_ already set out for me.”  
  
“You don’t want to be king?” She asks, suddenly, surprised at his admission if that’s the case. No one would look at King Arthur’s son and say he didn’t look ready to inherit the throne.

“I don’t know _how_ to be king,” Tedros elaborates, and he assesses her one last time. “You’d think it would be easy, right? Sit in a big chair, make decisions and treaties that benefit the country, and the people will love you. I’m gonna try and get a hit in, but don’t let me, okay?” Agatha nods, and braces for impact. “But it’s so much more _complicated_ than that, and if I make one wrong move, they’ll all turn on me.”  
  
“Sounds like a hell of a lot of pressure to put on a fifteen year old,” she comments as he lightly bats at her arms, obviously getting a feel for them, before grazing her forearms with a hit that she mostly flinches away from.  
  
“Nearly sixteen,” he corrects.  
  
“Yes, sure,” Agatha huffs, as she ducks and avoids his hits as he’d shown her, hands still up by her forehead. He looks pleased.

“If I go too hard or you need a break, let me know and I’ll stop,” Tedros says, as they sway to a stop, closer to the balcony than when they’d started.  
  
Agatha relaxes her arms and lets them swing by her side, before adopting the stance once more and asking, “Can I try and get a hit in at you?”  
  
“Sure, if you think you can,” he replies, arrogantly, and that only fuels her to _absolutely get a hit in._ He continues with their meandering conversation, “And, yeah, it is. It’s why I can’t be _incredibly average_ as you put it. I have to be the best. Live up to the impossible expectations the people have for me, the shadow of my father I have to step out from, not to mention all the diplomatic decisions I’ll have to make very soon.” She stalks towards him, fists lowering a bit from her forehead as she aims a few punches in the gaps between his own raised arms. Tedros blocks and ducks from each one of them twisting away before the hits can land. She huffs in frustration, kicking his shin as they continue around their small area on the roof. “Fixing the economy and trade agreements, renovations on current infrastructure — and that all has to come _after_ I find a queen, according to about half my advisors, and once again there are impossible expectations, because she must be purely good and just and loveable and...I’m sure half the girls here could be that. But I’m afraid they’re too blinded by the idea of being queen to show it.”  
  
“Then you’ve got to make it clear to them it’s not on the books,” Agatha suggests, holding up a hand for a break. Tedros’ posture slumps as Agatha grabs the drink bottle he’d scavenged for her from the kitchens. She takes a few big gulps before going on, “Being queen means you have to be ready for anything. If they can’t take the twists and turns of modern politics on top of marriage, then they’re not looking to be queens, they’re just looking for a position of high bragging rights. I propose you sack the advisors who want you to have a damned _child bride_ for a wife, and don’t even go _looking_ for a queen until you get crowned.”  
  
Tedros stares aghast at her. She drinks more water and then passes the bottle over to him, because he looks like he needs it. “Like, fix the infrastructure and the economy and the trade agreements, do all those things I can tell you’re really passionate about, and _then_ pick a bride. No rush.” Agatha sits down on a stone bench, pulling her legs up all akimbo beneath her. “I mean, the kingdom probably won’t need heirs until there’s a kingdom for the heirs to inherit, you know?”

Tedros passes the bottle back after a few calculated drinks and then says, “You make far too much sense.”  
  
“Why thank you,” Agatha says, and then shoots him a sarcastic thumbs up, _“That’s_ why I’m not failing.”

He sits down beside her on the bench. They’ve already been at this for nearly forty-five minutes. He lent her a loose shirt of his and some spare breeches for training, since the only clothes she had were the dresses her mother commissioned, her Ball gown, and her uniform, all of which are either too difficult to maneuver in or not worth ruining.

“Do you think Beatrix would be a good queen?” Tedros asks suddenly.  
  
“Oh, don’t ask my opinion on Beatrix,” she snorts, instead of reacting with shock that he even wants to consider it. Not everyone hates her like she does. “I swear you don’t want the answer. Why?”

“Just because I ended up picking her in today’s challenge.” Agatha flushes deep red. Of course he’s hung up about that. When she had kneed him in the chest and accidentally concussed him on a glass coffin during Forest Group, only to switch coffins while he was incapacitated, so he ended up picking Beatrix in her stead. She only did it because she was so surprised he had picked her once more in a challenge. She hasn’t told him. _Won’t_ tell him.

Of course he’s still wondering if Beatrix was actually the princess he chose.

“I think she needs a wake up call that the world isn’t always going to go her way and people aren’t always going to love her,” Agatha says, carefully, looking down at her hands, “but yeah, I think in the end she’d make an alright queen.”

He frowns deeper, “But would she make—”  
  
“Tedros, didn’t I _just say_ you shouldn’t be worrying about picking the perfect queen out of fifty-nine of your classmates?” She chides, him, setting the drink bottle down on the ground beneath them and turning fully to face him. “Besides, maybe the girl you pick won’t have gone here anyway—”  
  
“Why fifty-nine?” Tedros interrupts her.  
  
“Huh?”

“Why’d you say fifty-nine? There’s sixty.” Realisation dawns on his face, and Agatha holds back a groan. “Are you not counting yourself, again?”

“It’s like you said, Tedros,” she says, tiredly. “When this is all over, I’m going to go home, and try and live my life as quietly as I can, unless I get tracked as a mogrif or some ivy, in which case I won’t have much of a choice on the quietly point, now will I?” The joke doesn’t seem to land. Tedros looks crestfallen. She realises that the way she phrased it made it seem like this acceptance she’s come to is because he made her feel lesser than.

He begins to backtrack, “I didn’t mean—“  
  
“No, it’s fine, really!” Agatha interrupts him, putting her hands on his shoulders, and squeezing them. “It’s something I’ve always known and come to terms with a long time ago, _long_ before I even knew you. I’m never going to be some high-flying adored queen, and I shouldn’t forget that. Besides, who’s ever heard of an ugly queen?”

“Agatha, you’re not ugly,” he says, sounding outraged.

“Liar,” she accuses, turning back away from him, because she knows his stupid earnest face by now, and she knows how it’ll be torn up by righteous anger that she’d say that about herself, no matter how true it is. “You’re sweet, but that won’t help you get away with lying. Now come on, curfew’s coming quick and I want to actually get a hit in.”  
  
Thankfully, he drops it, following her to her feet. “I’d like to see you try.”

So, the moment he puts his arms up, Agatha punches him in the nose.

He gets spots of blood all over both of them in his delirious panic, and by curfew they’re sitting in the boys lavatory in the library, laughing their heads off as they realise what a mess he’s going to look like, the next day.

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” he assures her, with tissue stuck up his nose. “I’ll just say I tripped and fell into a wall or something.”

“You sound like a battered wife,” Agatha cackles. If she didn’t already know he was her friend, the fact that he wasn’t scared by her shrill, witchy-sounding laugh would be the cracker. He just looks endeared.

“You need to work on your punching technique,” Tedros says, touching the side of his nose gingerly again, “but otherwise it was _very_ effective.”

“Er, thanks for that.” She doesn’t feel like being congratulated for injuring him, but he seems content, so she doesn’t shake it off. “I’m going to bed before the fairy patrol comes and gives me dish-washing duties for a week.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he replies, waving lazily from where he stands slumped by the sinks.

Agatha doesn’t change out of the blood-spotted shirt and breeches as she climbs into bed, staring up at her canopy, covered in various artworks of princesses and princes locked in passionate embraces, their first kiss together. She doesn’t need _that._ Never will she need that. All she needs is a friend to keep her steady, to try and help her, who she can help in return. All she needs is to be the tree swaying in a storm, protecting a house from the worst of the rain and wind, as long as he can do the same for her.

And he’s already proved a few times over that he will.

* * *

The weekend arrives, mercifully free of insufferable lessons, but stacked high with impossible homework tasks.

 _(Smile at five people and have five smiles returned?_ What kind of homework is _that,_ professor?)

At midday on Saturday, as she wades through her Princess Etiquette essay on how knowing which cutlery to use for which meal at a formal dinner is important and _certainly not outdated_ (chill, Pollux) a letter is delivered from her mother, responding to her letter on Wednesday.

She asks how the repairs on the tower is going, how her research on wish-granting is panning out, and above all friends. Has she made friends? Who are they? Where are they from? Are they all treating her well and when is visitation day again?

Agatha grins at the parchment and the spiky chicken scratch of her mother’s handwriting. Only she and the butcher can truly read it, which makes it feel like something her very own. She writes back immediately, earnestly, describing how everything is back in order, and her friends are well. _Tedros, the future king of Camelot, is teaching me self defence moves because there’s a Nevergirl who seemed to have it in for me for a moment and he “doesn’t want to risk it” in his words. There’s a girl named Kiko who lent me some concealer which is quite nice of her, so it seems not_ _every_ _girl here hates the sight of me. Visitation day is in a month, on Saturday the fifteenth, and please keep that date safe. If you don’t end up coming I’ll be really very put out._

There’s really not much else to it, as it turns out, and posts the letter hardly an hour later.

Evergirls flit around in every possible part of the castle in their day dresses of green and pink and yellow and white. Agatha feels slightly out of place in blue. Of course, she could change into her white dress, but the big puffy sleeves make her nervous. Sure they’re currently in vogue, but she’s not sure if that will make up for how ridiculous she might look.

She wouldn’t relish Beatrix’s judging looks and whispers. She’s not sure she ever will.

Agatha lets that train of thought go and heads out the front entrance, taking a seat on the marble steps that look out to the gilded front gate and flowering lawns beyond it. If she squints, she can see the Endless Woods past that, and shudders when she thinks she sees something blinking back at her. No point in dreading a place she’s been before. She lived by them all the years before now, and ventured into them now and again for one reason or another. She has no reason to fear the Woods now that she’s safely locked away from them.

And there’s no reason to fear an uncertain future as long as she buckles down and tries really hard to not fail. Tedros really wants to train in the Groom Room and if there’s anything she can’t really say no to, apparently it’s when Tedros asks her to do something for him.

Agatha’s only seen him in passing today, and his nose is bruised. He was regaling the Everboys in the breakfast hall with a tale of fending off a rogue gargoyle on the roof. She’d stopped in the doorway, with half a mind to yell, “I think I’m a little prettier than a gargoyle!” in response. But she’d left it, leaving him to his cover story.

She thinks he needs something that’s just his to keep.

After sitting on the step for a while, she ventures into the breakfast hall. Lunches on weekends are buffets open from ten to four. There’s a few of her peers sitting at their circular tables. She sees two Evergirls exchange smiles, and then trade cards for Beautification, scrawling down their signatures as proof. Agatha really doesn’t know how she’s going to survive this class. She thinks if she got a smile, it would be a startled one, and they probably wouldn’t sign her proof card.

She grabs a leg of roasted chicken and strides out, feeling alienated by the people who didn’t even glance at her. Professor Sader wanders past, towards the dining hall. Suddenly remembering Sophie’s riddle, she chases after him.

“Professor Sader!” Agatha calls, nearly dropping her chicken in her haste.

“Not now, Agatha, I’m in a bit of a hurry,” he replies, jovially, and continues walking. Agatha lets him outpace her, stopping just in the doorway. It’s not like the riddle is her priority, it would just be nice to have something off her internal list. 

She ends up wandering down the corridor lined with portraits of successful alumni, beginning with the most recent. Agatha wonders if they’re enchanted to move down every time graduation rolls around. She hasn’t really paid attention to them before, but now, munching on perfectly cooked chicken, feeling lazy and a little sad, she stops to look, reading names and ranks.

Mordred’s words ring in her head, suddenly. _Does he look like his father?_ Agatha starts walking faster, eyes flicking past Ever’s that are new and unknown to her, looking, searching for the one she recognises. She wonders if he does—

There. Practically Tedros’ twin. _Arthur Pendragon of Camelot,_ reads the plaque under the portrait, _Leader._ His skin is probably a shade or two tanner than Tedros, and his hair probably a little more flaxen. Tedros is pale and golden-haired. Like the girl in the next portrait. Golden hair, skin so pale that her light dusting of freckles stands out like a spotlight. She seems a little angular and a little awkward, but she smiles all the same, and that seems to make up for her air of uncertainty, because she’s stunning. _Guinevere of Camelot, Leader._ Tedros’ mother. Estranged. A beautiful runaway.

She likes Tedros well enough, but she wonders what exactly it was that made her run off into the night. She wonders where this awkward girl has gone. She wonders if she even exists anymore.

* * *

It’s so much harder to try and actively improve in class, the next week, when she’s suddenly mother to a young and unruly ostrich. Everyone got an animal — the Ever’s that is. She heard someone say there’s a few Never’s over the most who have baby dragons.

Agatha’s not too sure how well this was thought out, giving out sidekicks for a week who didn’t yet know how to behave so that they could get on with their classes as always. A good few Evergirl’s spend most of Beautification wrangling their animals and berating them from trying to eat their clothes and parchment and textbooks.

Agatha gets off worst, she thinks. The ostrich is intent on causing chaos, and her lack of abilities to control it is judged harshly. Sure, she tries some of the tricks taught in Animal Communication to try and talk to it, but either she fumbles too badly and it doesn’t understand her, or it ignores her.

Beatrix and her little clique must be in the School Master’s good books because they end up with bunnies and kittens and ducklings. Agatha’s ostrich grabs a chunk of hair from the back of her head in Princess Etiquette and throws her to the floor. Pollux has no pity, and explains if she’d tamed it it wouldn’t cause so much trouble.

By lunch she’s chasing it around the clearing for her sandwich back, even if she knows she won’t eat it once it’s out of its mouth. It’s about discipline. Sophie’s dark haired cherub watches her with angry red eyes, vibrating with untapped energy. Agatha doesn’t have the time to unpack that.

She still hasn’t had the chance to talk to Sophie about the riddle — she hasn’t had any breakthroughs so far, and if Sophie had, she’d kept it to herself. Still, it kinda feels like the other girl is ignoring her.

Agatha doesn’t worry herself with it too much, instead focusing on placating the ostrich during Good Deeds. By Forest Group it’s calm and obedient, so long as she sneaks it jellybeans from Hansel’s Haven behind her back.

It tries to kick it out of her bed that night, but she makes it a nest in one of the other unused beds in the room, which it takes to eagerly.

From there it seems very straightforward. Or it would if Sophie’s cherub wouldn’t stop stalking her at lunch times. Agatha would go so far as to call it irritating, until the lunch where he whips out his bow and begins to shoot at her. With some luck, she manages to dodge the shots until Sophie calms him but it still makes her uneasy.

Even Hester — who as of so far has switched between angrily ignoring her existence and laughing loudly when she makes a fool of herself — looks concerned the day Grimm (Sophie’s cherub) comes at her with burning arrows. After trapping him in the well in the Blue Forest that day, Agatha is the one ignoring Sophie. She’d been almost useless in stopping him. Tedros threatens to go to the Dean, but that threat has long since lost its sting. Sophie just shrugs, “They’re the ones who organised it and selected each sidekick. They should’ve known not to pair up a villainous cherub with a misplaced princess.”

Agatha watches in bewilderment as she then bats her eyelashes at Tedros who looks more than weirded out. She has an incredibly bad feeling about this.

* * *

On Monday, Sophie attempts to shoot Tedros with a love spell. Agatha confronts her after class, assuring him she’d meet him on the roof as soon as she could.

“What the _hell,”_ she says, to announce her presence. Sophie’s still weeping quietly on the floor by the broken heart-shaped bullet that the love spell had been contained in.

She looks up at Agatha, mascara running, her black tunic splattered with a huge red F. “It was the _only way,”_ she wails before dissolving into sobs once more.

Agatha sighs and sits down on the forest floor, not wanting to comfort her, but still wanting answers. “The only way to _what?”_ She questions, sick of the silence Sophie has left her with, and sick of the schemes she seems to be endlessly cooking up. “Sophie, you have to help me understand.”

A few moments later, she sniffles and says, “To get him to love me.”

Agatha frowns. “Why do you need him to love you?” It hits her —the look Sophie had shot her in the Garden of Good and Evil, the way she’s been avoiding her — it fits, when she thinks about it. “Does this have something to do with the riddle?”

“It has _everything_ to do with the riddle!” Sophie bursts, scooting away from her, so deep down in her sorrow she doesn’t mind the mud she’s smeared in. “I tried to tell you the answer, but you were ignoring me, so I took matters into my own hands.”

Agatha looks at the broken heart again. “And that’s where it fell flat?”

“That’s now,” Sophie corrects. She stares at Agatha, face shiny with tears. It’s a bit funny. She hasn’t cried since the night after she nearly burnt down Honor tower, and yet almost every time she’s spoken with Sophie it’s ended in tears. It’s not a bad thing, particularly, it’s just funny how often it happens. “The answer is _true love._ And I need him to want me before he can fall in love with me, and since he seems intent on ignoring me, I figured a love spell was a good way to start. And then eventually I wouldn’t need the spell anymore, because he will have seen the real me, and will love me for who I am.”

“I...can’t even begin to tell you how messed up that is,” Agatha says, slowly, and then laughs, leaning back on her hands and looking up at the sun filtering through the blue canopy of leaves above them.  
  
“What?”

“He can’t begin to love you if he’s blinded by a love spell!” She elaborates, still laughing. It’s absurd. It’s _sick._ Agatha kind of wants to shake her. “And, even if it _was_ true love that you needed to get you home, tricking him into it won’t work!”  
  
Sophie’s sniffles stop, and when Agatha finally looks back to her, she’s staring, gaze hardened. She asks, “What do you mean _even if it was true love you needed?”_ Agatha feels the wind turn. “Am I wrong?”  
  
“You were close,” she allows, wary of the dangerous air Sophie is taking on. With every moment that slips past, the princess in her disappears and a witch slowly takes her place. Agatha can see it in her eyes. “There have been villains that have found true love. It never _lasted,_ because it _can’t._ But one thing _none_ of them ever got was the kiss. True Love’s Kiss. So it’s not just the love you need; it’s the proof, the declaration, the act.”

“Oh.” And just like that, the danger dissipates. Agatha can breathe again. She hadn’t realised it was becoming hard. She touches her throat, briefly. The bruises still haven't completely faded.

“Do you see?” She gulps, and reaches out. Sophie tentatively meets her halfway, their hands meeting, a meeting of peace for the first time. It kind of feels like a breath of fresh air for some reason. “I mean, _sure,_ show him your true self, _absolutely_ do that — he can’t fall in love with a false version of you — and _of course_ let him get to know you before he falls in love, but don’t aid yourself with cheap, useless magic.”

“So, you’ll help me?” Sophie butts in, as soon as Agatha stops for breath.

She blinks, “What?”

“You’ll help me get Tedros to fall in love with me, obviously,” and Sophie draws away, running her fingers through the bob that’s left of her hair. She’s coming back to colour, looking self confident once more, but Agatha can’t help the anger that seeps in when she sees almost no change. “I can make myself authentic. I just need you to convince him I’m not all bad.”

“You tried to shoot him with a _love spell_ today, so I’m not sure he’s going to listen to me on that front.” Agatha replies, scoffing. “And just because the Storian is writing a story about us doesn’t mean I’m going to get my closest friend to fall in love with you. Right now, especially, your motives are entirely selfish.”  
  
Sophie coughs, “You sound jealous.”  
  
“Do you even _hear_ what you’re saying?” She means to go on, but then it strikes her, and she gets to her feet. “I don’t need to deal with this.”

“The Good help, Agatha,” Sophie reminds her in a sing-song tone, as if she’s caught her in a trap. “That’s one of the most fundamental rules of the forest. The Good help where the Evil hurt.”

Agatha lets out an exasperated sigh, and kicks a nearby root. “Are you manipulating me through the most basic ethics of our society?”

Sophie, in her red splattered tunic and harshly shorn hair, smeared in mud, shrugs, smiling gracefully with so much malic behind it, “I mean, if you _really_ want to phrase it like that, sure.”

“No. You know what? I’m not going to talk you up to him so you can get your way,” Agatha states, as clearly as she can, and ignores the outraged look that crosses Sophie’s features. “Because I think that _if_ you get his love — and that is a _huge_ if — you won’t want to let it go, and you won’t take his kiss. You’ll just make him stay with you, and you won’t go home. I think that I don’t want to help you because you’ll drag him down if I do.”

“That’s an awful thing to accuse me of,” Sophie murmurs.

“Tell me I’m wrong, then.” And she hasn’t felt this wicked since the first day here, when all those girls showed her how different she was to them. She hasn’t felt like this since she stole Tedros’ gaze at the welcoming ceremony. She’s really not looking to make enemies, but if it means she doesn’t get mixed up in some villains plot to claim Tedros as her prince when he’d told her not too long ago that he really didn’t want any of that, then she thinks it’s worth it.

She’s met with silence from Sophie. Resolute, defeated silence.

“I think you’re in the right school, after all,” she says as way of goodbye. She kicks the broken heart bullet on her way back to the Good castle. _“This_ is proof enough.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so.....yeah. I have conveniently forgotten how to do/what to include in end notes so this is just gonna be me signing off for the night, until next Tuesday. Lots of Fun Stuff to come ;)


	3. but somehow the words will not leave my mouth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Are you crying?”
> 
> “Shut up,” Tedros snaps, but his heart obviously isn’t in it.
> 
> “Oh, come on,” Agatha says, scooting towards him and batting his arm, not sure how to help when a friend has been privately crying, but knowing she must. “So, I can punch you in the face, but _seeing you cry_ is off limits?”
> 
> “I’m not crying,” he insists, trying to push her away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: *sees Agatha's official quest in the Ever Never Handbook is "Reestablishing the role of the Queen of Camelot with an emphasis on social equality and civil rights"*  
> Me: *overloads on dopamine and writes the whole second scene in one sitting*
> 
> In any case, Ever-Never Civil Rights Activist Agatha is confirmed and you can pry her from my cold dead hands. Also I have so many gd quibbles with the second and third year curriculum outlined in the Handbook, so i will be continually addressing that lmao. 
> 
> Enjoy!!

With fingerglows unlocked and a plotting Nevergirl taken care of, as well as her grades and ranks steadily improving, Agatha and Tedros find more and more time to do self defence training in the gym portion of the Groom Room. Agatha, now having been inside officially, kind of sees the allure.

It’s a great place to relax — just like the back corners of the library and Merlin’s Menagerie. No one ever bothers her, and if there are people there, they're mostly keeping to themselves or their little group. Groom Room privileges are like a VIP ticket to a backroom. 

Doesn’t mean no one stares. No other Evergirls seem to cross into the gym-portion of the Groom Room, except for when admiring the object of their affection be handsome and capable with dumbbells or something, and almost no Everboys cross into the joint makeup-spa section.

(There are notable exceptions there, too, because there’s a sauna over there, and you know some of the boys come from more feminine-leaning kingdoms where a little makeup goes a long way.)

So, yes, they get some stares, but Agatha’s used to that at this point. She doesn’t think she’ll ever get rid of the stares, as long as she continues to run in Ever circles. Tedros deflects them as best he can, encourages her to focus, and he comes at her, willing to actively tackle her when there’s plenty of crash mats around them to cushion her fall.

And, under his careful tutelage, she’s getting better at protecting herself. She can stand her ground against him. Never lasts too long, but she can surprise him, she can catch him off guard, she can wrestle him onto his back or his front and make him say _uncle_ while he wheezes in laughs.

That’s probably when they get the strangest looks; when Agatha, in his carefully laundered loose shirt and breeches, mocks him into giving up, usually bracing him down on the mats with her knee or her hand, and, on one notable occasion, with her forearm to his windpipe. He’d had a bruise the next day, but he just ducked his head when she pointed it out. (“Proof I’m not a crap teacher. I’m not worried.”)

Still, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. Seems her talk in the Blue Forest with Sophie sparked something other than acceptance of her plight. Only a few days after the conversation — between which Sophie disappears — there’s a small group of Nevergirl’s huddled into a corner. Agatha walks over, intrigued, and ignores the looks she garners from both sides. It’s easy to, once she comprehends what she’s seeing.

Sophie’s jagged hair has been curled and artfully styled into a fashionable updo, paired with a brand new black strapless dress, no doubt made from her old school uniform. She’s instructing around twenty of her peers about face cream, with a smile and a full face of untouched makeup. Agatha can’t help but feel somewhat aghast.

It’s clear this is what she sees as her authentic self, but how she thinks this is going to get Tedros to love her, Agatha has no clue. “What is going _on,”_ she murmurs only really loud enough for herself to hear.

“She said it was your idea,” answers Hester, directly to her left. Agatha jumps nearly a foot in the air in fright. Hester looks very close to cackling, but obviously stuffs it down, pulling on a mutinous expression like she knows she has to look intimidating, right now. “For that I’m _officially_ not talking to you.”  
  
Agatha frowns and absently follows Hester away from the horde. “It was _unofficial_ before?” She asks, bewildered.

“You didn’t _try,_ so I don’t see how you would have known, but yes, it was unofficial before,” Hester replies, marching across the crunchy grass. It’s always a little worse on the Never’s side of things, so this detail doesn’t surprise her.  
  
She huffs, “You were glaring at me like if I came a step nearer you’d rend me limb from limb.”  
  
“How long have we known each other?” Hester demands, whirling on her, and then her expression scrunches as she reevaluates. “No, wait, it’s Ani that can read my face like a book. Alright, refresher class; if I’m glaring that means come talk to me, if I’m ignoring you, that means I’m upset, if I laugh when you trip on a rock and land on your ass that means I’m willing to forgive, you _pea-brained traitor.”_

“I really am sorry,” Agatha tells her, as earnestly as she can manage.  
  
Hester holds up a dismissive hand, turning her face away and says, “Not talking to you.” Agatha feels like she’s talking to a ten year-old with anger issues, not her scary powerful witch friend (the one with anger issues).  
  
“Well, you can listen,” she replies, and Hester takes a step away, so she continues quickly, “and I can _follow you_ if you walk away. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, all of you that I got accepted into Good. I was a shock to me and mom, and I barely even had my head wrapped around it when I arrived here. I just thought if I’d told you before we all left for school you would abandon me there and then and I’d lose all of you.”

Hester’s shoulders slump in, somewhat and she asks in a less accusing tone, “So, you just wanted things to be normal, huh?”  
  
“Do you blame me? I miss _everything.”_ And it’s true. Agatha didn’t really want to admit it, but it’s true. “Home and my mother. Going for walks with you and Ani — and even _Hort,_ lord forbid. I miss tracking mud into Ani’s house and her mom making us clean it up. I miss you all so badly.”  
  
For a second, and she probably imagined it, but it seems as though a pang of sadness echoes out of Hester’s eyes, across her face, like a ripple on a lake. It’s gone as soon as it came, and she puts her hands on her hips, proclaiming, “Tough luck.” It looks like that’s all she’ll say, turning away, but then she whips around, pointing an accusatory finger at Agatha, and advancing on her quickly. “And if you’re hoping we’ll still be friends come summer, _think again._ I’m not a fair-weather friend, Agatha, I’m forever and always, if even _that,_ and the fact you _lied to me_ and _tricked me?_ Doesn’t exactly put you in my good books.”  
  
“No, I know that,” Agatha says, holding her ground, so they’re almost chest to chest. “But I wanted to clear the air.”  
  
“Done, it’s clear,” and Hester looks satisfied. She looks over Agatha’s shoulder, and snorts. “Now get back over to your Good boyfriend and the gaggle of Evergirl’s suffocating him. He looks like he’s about to die.”

Agatha looks over. His playfight with Chadwick has escalated somewhat and the Evergirl’s surrounding them are getting rowdy, probably throwing handkerchiefs and fainting to get his attention. She takes off at a sprint, and throws over her shoulder, “He’s not my boyfriend!”

“YOU’RE NOT FORGIVEN, BY THE WAY!” Hester bellows after her. “YOU’RE GONNA HAVE TO WORK HARDER THAN THAT TO BE FORGIVEN!”

Agatha knows that. She’s got to work really hard on a lot of things, these days.

* * *

“Professor Anemone is worried,” Dovey tells her, one evening before dinner. Agatha slumps in her seat, thinking of all the things she could be doing instead of getting lectured for eating candy in class and failing the homework portion of Anemone’s class. (She’s barely scraping by in practical work, too. This probably has something to do with that as well.)

“Uh-huh,” she prompts, staring at the pumpkin shaped paperweights on Dovey’s desk. Of course she’d known this was coming. She can study all she wants, but when it comes to putting these kinds of things into practice she’s always a little bit crap. She can’t get five people to smile at her when she smiles at them and then get their signatures to prove it happened because half the people here are still terrified she’s a witch infiltrating their crystal haven.

“She thinks you’re not focusing on becoming the best version of you that you can be, prioritising brutish behaviour and practices over Beautification, and eating candy.” Dovey raises an eyebrow. “For the last one I agree; _don’t_ eat the decor, Agatha.”

“Of course,” Agatha replies, blandly.

“As for the rest, I’ve been hearing of these _brutish behaviours and practices_ as Emma puts it, and I frankly don’t see the problem.” Agatha blinks in surprise, watching her teacher carefully. “It’s a good training technique for Tedros, to teach what you’ve been taught, and I see no reason why any princess that emerges from this school shouldn’t be able to physically defend herself.”

“Then why am I here?” And she doesn’t mean it to come out sounding so forceful, but by Dovey’s expression, she can tell she’s pushing the older woman to the edge of her patience.

“Because I must address the concerns Emma raised to me,” she explains carefully. “And because you cannot shun classwork just because it doesn’t align with your current interests.”

“Okay, sure, yeah,” Agatha says, sitting up properly, and picking up one of the paperweights, passing it from hand to hand in a display of nervous energy. “But consider that I’m already putting in so much time just trying to keep up. A lot of the girls I take classes with were higher born, and because of that they had certain privileges that I wasn’t. And consider that all of them are conventionally attractive while I would describe myself as _at most_ solidly average looking.” She laughs, nervously, the cool smooth glass pumpkin in her hands doing nothing to calm her nerves. “My smile is not kind, and my posture is not straight, and so my classmates mock me and my teacher shuns my attempts to engage in the class.”

Dovey taps a rhythm onto her desk with the tips of her fingers and says, “I see.”

“Not only that,” Agatha continues, now on a roll, now unable to stop, now a dam rushing open and spilling every which way, “but it’s very hard to interact with almost _anyone_ here when they all know I came from a Never town and think that means I’m actually a witch. That kind of sets me apart, don’t you think? I’ll bet that hasn’t happened for a good long while, because at some point down the road, being Good stopped being about _doing the best you can for everyone around you_ and became _how to catch your prince in three simple steps.”_

“I can tell you’ve thought about this,” Dovey says to her, probably trying to encourage her into stopping, but she has no idea of the whirling vortex in Agatha’s mind, the problems she’s faced all rushing together and clumping in her throat, begging to be let out, screaming at her to be spoken into the world.

“Well, yeah. I mean, I’ve been reading up on the classes and curriculums that come up in the three years I’ll have to study here, and I keep coming back to the fact that I am not privy to the same abilities and experience as my classmates.” Suddenly aware of how easily she could lose her grip, she smacks the glass pumpkin back on the desk and rips her hand away, inserting it into her greasy hair. “Next year in Beautification, the main focus for the _entire year_ will be designing and creating a fucking _fashion line!”_

“Language,” Dovey warns, but otherwise remains silent, listening carefully.

“I can darn socks, I can mend stockings and patch skirts, even fix hems, but I can’t _draw,_ and I can’t _design,_ and I can’t _sew an entire wardrobe,_ not if I want it to be _good._ And if I spent my whole summer working on my sewing and drawing, if I spent every minute here next year sewing and drawing, I’d need to neglect all my other classes, and even then I couldn’t guarantee that what I turned out would be even half as good as whatever my peers produced. _And,_ if I _somehow_ managed to top the class that semester, that _still_ wouldn’t grant me freedom to be whatever I want in my future. Do you see?” Agatha’s known all this for so long, and she kept it inside because it scared her too much to think about. When she trains with Tedros, his hits glancing off her sides, his sweaty skin pressing briefly to hers, she can ignore it, she can forget it, because he’s really good at distracting her from things she dreads, but now she can’t help how she shakes. “I’m so stressed and terrified that because I was born in what is basically the poorest part of the most downtrodden portion of the entire land, that I will fail, and the system that put me there, that put all the people I grew up around there, is set up to cater to the cream of the crop, so it’s set up to make us fail. I’m at a disadvantage, you have to understand that.

“So, _yes,_ I do physical training because it feels better than just sitting and stressing, and I barely sleep so I can study for classes I’m woefully unprepared for, just so I won’t consistently catch failing ranks. Professor Anemone can worry I’ll fail all she wants, but it’s her standards that are making me fail.”

“Well,” Agatha looks up at her teacher, and sees the conflicted expression on her face that she doesn’t quite manage to mask in time. “That seems like an awful lot on your shoulders.”

“Is this the first time someone’s complained?” She asks, genuinely curious, because Dovey seems shaken by her admissions.

“Students have been stressed before,” Dovey allows, “but they trust in the system.”

“And the system makes _ivy_ out of them,” Agatha snaps. “Don’t you feel _sick_ every time graduation comes around, because _a whole third_ of your students couldn’t cut it well enough? A whole third, professor, of _your_ student body. Forty promising, pure Good students weren’t prepared enough and are cursed for the rest of their lives to die for their prettier, more skilled peers. The threat looms. Not even because of grades, it’s just set up that a third of the student body will always end up as mogrifs, it just hasn’t been decided which ones yet. We’re fighting each other every day to not end up a squirrel or a dandelion. Doesn’t that seem _really_ fucked up to you?”

“I don’t make the rules, Agatha.” Dovey blusters, obviously affronted by her questions, at the accusations in her tone. “And I certainly don’t pick the classes you must take. I get my orders, just like everyone else, from the School Master.”

“Maybe Sophie was right,” Agatha mutters, slumping in her seat and gazing out at the offending tower through the window over Dovey’s shoulder. “Maybe we need to have a chat.”

“You don’t believe her story, do you?” The professor inquires.

“I believe she’s _hurting._ She thinks she’s been misplaced and forgotten. From what I gather, she led a very privileged life. She’s my opposite. Cream of the crop to mud on someone’s shoe. Vice versa with me.” Agatha laughs, though she doesn’t feel amused. She feels like she’s having a heart attack, and she feels like crying, and she feels like sleeping for a few days and waking up to find it’s all been a messy, crazy dream. “Imagine being stripped of your title, job, and magic and thrown into the woods to fend for yourself. How would _you_ cope?”

“Hmm,” Dovey says. “Have you ever heard that the greatest villains make you doubt?”

And Agatha stares. That’s right; the adults in this castle say goodbye every four years to potential heroes and villains, so what else would she think Sophie was? Not a girl in need of guidance and support, someone to show her compassion and help her figure out what the hell she’s doing. “She’s not a villain yet, Professor,” Agatha tells her, teeth gritted. “She’s a _student._ Maybe not _your_ student, but a student nonetheless. And just like me and all my peers she is a child. Much more than that, she was taken, kidnapped here. None of us had a choice but she didn’t even get _warning._ She was stolen from her Reader town and now she can’t go back. That doesn’t seem fair does it? I think I’d act out too.”

“Why are you protecting her?” Her teacher asks, sounding curious, not accusatory.

“Because no one else is. Literally _no one_ is protecting her. Not her peers, not her teachers, no one.” Agatha sighs. She’s so tired. “I don’t agree with her methods, I don’t agree with her decisions, but if I left her too, I’d never forgive myself.”

They both stop. They watch each other. Agatha wishes she was at home with her mother, that she didn’t have to deal with any of this. But, she thinks she’d miss Tedros if she could leave right now. He’s become such an integral part of her life recently it’s difficult to think she’ll have to be apart from him eventually.

“I wonder sometimes if there’s such a thing as someone who isn’t fully Evil and isn’t fully Good,” Agatha says, suddenly, and it seems to even startle Dovey, how abrupt her proclamation had been. “Sometimes I feel Evil. I know I might _look_ Evil, especially to the other girls here. But the School Master brought me to Good.” She smiles a little, to herself, almost unaware that she’s doing it. “I wonder if I could just be neutral ground. I wonder if that would be so bad.”

“It’s strange,” Dovey says in return, and Agatha . “We were all convinced you were the other Reader. We always get two Readers but the one for Good never showed up, and you looked out of place so we assumed it was you. But you’re from Bloodbrook.”

“And my mother’s a Never, I know, it’s confusing,” Agatah finishes for her. She chews one of her nails, ignoring Dovey’s unimpressed face. “I’ve done some reading on it. It’s not a phenomenon that has ever occurred before, at least not where everyone can see it. Some theorise that a Good child borne to Evil parents must be the product of True Love.”

Dovey cocks her head, caught on a detail, “And what of your father?”

“Never met him,” Agatha shrugs, apathetic. “He died before I was born.”

“What was his name?”

“Why?”

“I just want as much information as I can get.”

Agatha worries her bottom lip with her teeth, and says, “My mother said his name was Stefan.”

* * *

Sophie’s lunchtime lectures and her outfits get more and more elaborate as the days go on. The group before her grows, her smile grows wider, and her rank drops quickly to the bottom. One-hundred and twentieth out of one-hundred and twenty. Agatha wonders if she’s doomed her, accidentally.

She watches more of the lectures than she means to. So does Hester. They stand near the back, watching, witnessing this strange display of human stubbornness to succeed. Agatha wonders if it’s still the selfish result of needing a Good Deed to brighten her soul, or if she now genuinely gets something out of teaching these kids to take care of themselves. Agatha really hopes it’s the latter. She’d really like it if somehow Sophie’s managed it, managed to access a part of her that isn’t purely Evil.

Despite what she said about Agatha needing to work to get back in her good books, Hester is easily plied with lunch’s decadent offerings, to which she comments things like, “I could definitely be angrier with you, but they don’t serve cherry tarts in Malice tower.”

Hester says she mostly watches to heckle, but she does very little heckling. She mostly whispers to Agatha mean comments that Agatha holds back laughs at, and she refuses the sample of creams and hair gels that are passed around the group. 

(They’re eating gingersnap biscuits one lunch when Agatha turns and says, “Your hair looks shiny.”

Hester shoves her over and hisses, “Not my fault she has good tips for dye jobs.”)

Anadil begins joining them too, not wanting to be left out. She whispers with Hester, and Agatha wonders if their lack of teasing about Dot’s involvement is a sign they’re shunning her or simple indifference.

“It’s kind of mesmerising,” Agatha whispers once, and casts a glance around her. The Nevers around her smell good, have clean washed hair and faces, and their robes have been patched and resewn to fit better.

“Yeah,” Hester agrees, her arms and chin draped over Ani’s shoulders, “in a vomit inducing kind of way.”

Anadil snickers in response, and Agatha rolls her eyes, smiling, “I’ve yet to see you vomit _once_ because of this.”

(Hort also hovers at the edges of these gatherings, but the witches and Agatha ignore him, now that he’s made it clear he “doesn’t need friends”, and is instead pursuing doomed Never love with a girl who doesn’t even know his name, much less want to.)

Agatha knows she should be using this time to study — they’re learning to mogrify in Forest Groups currently, and her insects are getting easier and easier to transform into. Next step is small animals; mice, frogs, lizards. It’s actually pretty exciting, even if it does mean she has to strip naked every time to do it. A bit embarrassing, yes, but worth it.

She’s gotten first rank in Forest Group ever since they started mogrification, simply because she studied ahead, and not that she’s always taking notice, but Sophie doesn’t seem to care about her ranks, always sitting out, scribbling in a notebook, or hand sewing something, pens in her mouth, lace trimming draped over her shoulder as she attaches it to the hem of whatever black monstrosity she’s making out of her robes this week.

Agatha tries not to think too much about it. She hasn’t talked to Tedros about her, because she won’t help Sophie get something she hasn’t worked hard for, but she watches the lectures and the dresses with guilt. This is Sophie’s Authentic Self, and that Authentic Self is going to fail out of school at this rate. She meant what she said to Dovey, she wants to help because no one else will. It’s not her responsibility, but if everyone else is content to let Sophie drown in her own experience, she can’t stand by as well. She knows she has to do something. But she doesn’t know what.

* * *

Visitation day arrives slowly, crawling like a snail over a window after rain. The parents are due at midday, but at breakfast, Agatha receives a letter, scrawled in her mother’s hurried chicken scratch.

_Dear Agatha,_

_I know I promised to come today, but the Countess has had a bad turn and I need to be here to take care of her. Next time, I_ _swear_ _. Tell Anadil I’m doing everything I can. I’ve sent her a letter of her own, but I’m sure she’ll feel better if she hears it from a second source. I don’t think it’s the end, but you never know with these illnesses. Eat plenty of cakes for me, my dear._

_With love, your mother_

Agatha feels incredibly justified in storming out, back to her room, letter scrunched in hand and tossed to the side on the stairs.

At midday she can hear the clamour of her peers rushing down to the entrance hall, and all the extra, louder voices of their parents. Her mother will not be in their midst. She hugs a pillow to her chest and ignores the fairy patrol knocking on her door. It must be unusual for an Ever’s parents to miss visitation day. They probably don’t know what to do.

Instead of joining in, Agatha continues with her studies, the sleeves of her blue day dress rolled up. Animal Communication is easier for her now, because of her mutual understanding with animals, which means Princess Uma is warmer towards her. Professor Sader has her in the top ranks of his class as well, because he only grades on written work, implementing no in-class challenges. It’s really only Beautification and Princess Etiquette that she’s falling behind in — which means she’s inching towards top ranks all the time, sitting squarely at forty-one out of one-hundred and twenty every single week — and she’s pretty sure it’s because Pollux and Anemone have it out for her.

Or, like she said to Dovey, because of the class divide.

To avoid the fairy patrol, she grabs her textbooks and resolves to go up to the roof and practice. And it’s easy at first, speed walking through the breezeway into Honor tower, and then up some stairs until the door to Merlin’s Menagerie looms, and she lets herself in. The quiet tranquility of the garden hits her and Agatha relaxes a little. It’s nice to be out of the way entirely from the visiting families.

She sets her books down on a stone bench, flipping through the records she kept of what challenges she failed in which classes and why. It’s all things they’ll be judging at the ball and that’s crucial to ace. If she makes a fool of herself at the ball, she’s cursed to be a sparrow for the rest of her short life.

Fluffing out her barely used petticoat, she places two textbooks on her head and begins to walk, chin up, back straight, hands daintily held out for balance. She almost immediately trips over a leg.

With her chin up, eyes on the horizon she simply hadn’t seen it. Or him. _Tedros._

He looks at her, bewildered, where he sits against the base of a hedge — his father pulling Excalibur from the stone. She lies on the floor, probably with a bruised hip and shoulder, her books scattered. That pretty much sums up why she’s failing Princess Etiquette.

“Aren’t you supposed to be graceful?” Tedros teases her, at the same time as she lets out a hearty, _“Ow.”_

She sits up, brushing off her dress and frowns at him. “Why are you sitting in a _bush?”_

“It’s surprisingly comfortable,” he responds, but the teasing is gone, and she notices the thick quality to his voice. “Are you being a _girl?”_  
  
Agatha frowns, “What am I usually?”

Tedros looks around, hunched in on himself, and shrugs, “You’re... _Agatha.”_

 _“Right,”_ she agrees, carefully, at his non-answer, aware of the closed off nature he’s adopting. “Well, Etiquette and Beautification are the only classes I’m failing, so I figured I’d take advantage of the lack of students everywhere and do some practice.” She peers at him. His face is shiny and pink, his blonde eyelashes all sectioned from tears. “Are you crying?”

“Shut up,” Tedros snaps, but his heart obviously isn’t in it.

“Oh, come on,” Agatha says, scooting towards him and batting his arm, not sure how to help when a friend has been privately crying, but knowing she must. “So, I can punch you in the face, but _seeing you cry_ is off limits?”

“I’m not crying,” he insists, trying to push her away. Agatha only lets him push her to sit next to him.

“Don’t lie to me.” She pulls her knees up and wraps her arms around them, resting her cheek on the tops of her knees. “Hey, _Tedros,_ I’m not going to judge you.”

He sucks in a shaky breath and looks away. When he next speaks, she can hear the tears in his words, “Wasn’t your mom coming today?”  
  
“Don’t think I didn’t notice that subject change,” Agatha says, rolling her eyes at being rebuffed, but she nods, “She had to bail last minute, so I’m also angry at her.”

“Why’d she bail?” He obviously doesn’t want to talk about it, but she can guess it’s probably because no one’s come to visit him either.

She sighs, “Anadil’s mother — you know Anadil, she’s the albino witch at Evil? — she has the lung.”

“The lung?” Tedros questions, still turned away, but sounding clearer with every word.

“Boy, you’re full of questions today,” she comments as cheerfully as she can, given his mood and the subject. She bumps her shoulder into his bicep, and he hums in response, obviously not wanting to justify it. “Yeah, uh, consumption. Makes you cough up blood all the time. Technically it’s fatal but my mother has been treating her since a little after I was born, and with magic she’s managed to extend her life expectancy. Does mean every time the Countess has a bad turn my mother can’t leave her side for a long while, and it exhausts her so much.”

He sniffs, finally turning, his face towards the sky, to lean back against the hedge again. “It sounds _awful.”_

“It is. It can be really bad, sometimes,” Agatha admits, moving so her chin is propped up on her knees. The sky's still blue. Lots of daylight left. She wonders if they’ll stay up here until everyone’s parents go home. She’d miss dinner for him if he wanted to stay here. “Once I was over at Anadil’s house and her mother collapsed on the floor and vomited blood everywhere. We had to clean it up.”

Tedros makes a grossed out sound, and asks, “Why do all your stories involve _vomit?”_

“Not _all_ my stories involve vomit,” Agatha protests, bumping his shoulder again. Tedros frowns.

“A great deal of your stories,” he amends.

“I don’t know,” she answers, honestly, fingers curling in the soft material of her dress. “I’ve just seen a lot of gross things.”

Tedros looks down at her hands and frowns even deeper. “Your dress is ripped,” he tells her, reaching out and taking ahold of the hem, showing her an ugly rip running up the skirt, probably only about a ruler's length, but still incredibly conspicuous.

“Oh, crap,” she sighs, shaking her head as she takes in the damage. She feels bad, since her mother paid good money for it to be made, and she didn’t even hate it, though she missed the shapeless black smocks of her youth. “I’ll have to patch it. _Damn.”_

“It still looks nice,” he reassures her, but she doubts he means it. It’ll be salvageable, but she’ll have to plead with some of the Evergirl’s for some clean restitching. She has to figure out what she can give them in return that would be tempting enough to help her. Dessert, her usual bribe, is completely off the table, in this case.

“Thanks,” she murmurs.

Tedros lets go of her dress and picks a handful of grass, letting it sift through his fingers, “Do you own any other dresses?”

“Like, that I brought with me?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“I have a white one with these ridiculous sleeves,” she gestures how huge they are for him and he looks somewhat amused for the first time since she found him up here, “and a dress my mother bought me for the ball, but other than those and my school uniform, no.”  
  
Tedros’ mouth twists in its smile, “And you don’t wear the white one because of the sleeves?”

“Yeah,” Agatha agrees, straightening her legs out in front of her, her clumps (with the painstaking paint chipping off) a sudden and surprising contrast to her dress.  
  
“Why don’t you just cut them off?” Tedros suggests, still picking grass. “Refashion the material to be short sleeves?”

“Oh, I don’t know enough about sewing to do that,” she admits. She frowns at his hands and suggests, “If you need something to do you can mess around with my hair, I don’t mind.”  
  
“I thought all the girls here knew how to sew,” he muses and shifts around where he’s sitting to look at her hair. It’s grown since she last impulsively cut it short. Where it fell at her jaw when she arrived, it now hangs at her shoulders. “No, wait, of course you wouldn’t.”  
  
“And how much about sewing do _you_ know?” Agatha asks, turning her back to him so he can access her hair better.

“Oh, a bit,” he replies, sounding a little bashful, and it’s really so funny when he gets embarrassed over silly little things, like knowing how to sew, or recognising a bit of little-known poetry. It’s funny, and it’s a little endearing, because Agatha feels a little closer to him for it, like she’s being let in, slightly.  
  
“A bit,” she repeats, and tries not to shudder away from his first soft touch to her hair. “Like, could you refashion my sleeves for me?”  
  
Tedros hums, and sections her hair into thirds, probably planning a plait of some sort. “If I’m properly compensated,” he says, sounding cheeky.  
  
“What would his majesty desire?” Agatha sighs, dramatically, as he quickly begins to swap each section of hair over the others.

“Your dessert.”

 _“Hell_ no. I’m eating for my mother, too. She said to.”

“Then I’m not helping.”  
  
“Ugh, I _hate_ you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“No, I don’t,” Agatha agrees, feeling a little too visible to him. His fingertips keep brushing the back of her neck, just slightly, but every soft brush nearly causes her to inch away, for fear of leaning into it. She doesn’t know what she’s thinking. She feels like she doesn’t know anything. He shuffles away for a moment, his hands leaving her hair, and she waits patiently for whatever’s supposed to come next.

What comes next is him wrapping some kind of material around the end of her finished plait to tie it off. As soon as he’s done, she turns and tries to catch it over her shoulder. It’s his stupid embroidered tie. Agatha holds back a laugh, and gets to her feet, heading to the pond at the far end of the garden to take a look at his handy work. It’s pretty good for a first attempt, if she’s honest.

“You know,” Agatha calls to him, not too far behind her, “I’ve half a mind to stay here for Winter Solstice, just to punish my mom. But then I wouldn’t see her until next semester’s visitation day. I don’t think I could go that long.”  
  
“Well, if you do decide to stay for Winter Solstice, let me know,” Tedros says, arriving beside her. “That’s _my_ plan.”  
  
“You’re not going home?” Agatha questions, confused. As far as she knew, the Winter Solstice was hugely important in Camelot. Surely his people would want him there to celebrate.

Tedros just looks weary as he responds, “Why would I? No one to celebrate with, except the servants, and I think they appreciate each other's company more than mine. Plus, not having to wait on me for the Solstice would be a nice change for them, I think.”

She considers this as he sits down on a nearby stone bench. “That’s considerate,” Agatha comments.

“Yes, I suppose it is,” he agrees softly as she comes and sits down beside him. “Mostly I think it’s selfish. I just hate celebrating without my parents. It’s been six years, and it’s still really difficult.”

She nods, noticing the sombre turn in the conversation, and knowing this could be a slippery slope. “I can only imagine.”

“You know he put a price on her head?” There it is. His face is scrunching a little, his voice thickening again. No one’s actually cried in front of her, before. Her friends were stoic and took it home with them, and her mother was a cheerful woman by all accounts. If he breaks Agatha won’t know what to do. “That’s part of my _inheritance._ When I assume the throne, I also get the _warrant for her death._ If she shows her face in my kingdom, she’s to be killed. My own _mother.”_

“I’m so sorry, Tedros.” She says, softly, and when he starts crying Agatha leans against him. He leans back, heavily, his head turning so his face brushes against her neck, bared by his handiwork on her hair. She reaches across him, trying to comfort him and not knowing how. His hand finds hers. She clasps it firmly, holding their joined hands up against her chest. And he cries for a little bit, while Agatha holds him.

She holds him for a long time while Tedros gets it out of his system, and he keeps saying things like, “I wish they were still here. I wish they could come and see me. I wouldn’t even hate them if they could come and see how I’m doing. I’d stop hating them, I would, I’d give anything.”

And all she can respond with is, “I know. I’m sorry. It’s okay. I know.”

By the time he’s calmed himself down, there’s a strange air about them, a sense of kinship that wasn’t there before. Like a bond has been formed through the tears, the clasping of hands; a spell that binds them. She’ll have to ask Hester if such a thing exists, because the feeling of it scares her.

“If you wanted,” she says softly, watching grey clouds roll towards the castle — it never rains on Good because the boundary is enchanted, only on Evil, but occasionally the rain blows briefly on them, and Agatha likes those times best. “You could come to Bloodbrook with me, and celebrate the Solstice with me and mom.”

“What?” Tedros asks, voice groggy and strained, he’s looking away, as if he’s suddenly embarrassed to be seen like this again.

“I know it’d be a bit weird,” Agatha continues, feeling awkward for even saying it, “staying in a tiny house in a Never town with me but the invitation is open if you don’t want to spend two weeks alone in the castle.”

“I’ll, uh,” and he looks at her, face pink, eyes red, and she thinks he shouldn’t be so embarrassed, he looks fine, as he gives a watery smile, “I’ll think about it.”

“Cool,” Agatha grins at him. She gets to her feet. “Are you hungry? I heard they were running the lunch buffet until four, so we probably still have time to grab something to eat.”

“I’m not very hungry,” Tedros admits, following a step behind her, “but I’ll come with you.”

The thing about her clumps is they’re incredibly reliable things, but she has to lace them up every morning. They don’t often come undone, because her mother charmed them to stay laced. But magic fades over time, and Agatha’s only just gotten access to hers, so the charm has slipped a bit, which means that as she takes a step, Tedros quickly in her stride, he manages to miscalculate just a bit, and steps on her laces, causing her step to falter, causing her to careen forward into a small stone wall, which causes a sickening _cracking_ noise as her face collides with the wall.

It’s jarring on her neck and face and wrists as she tries to catch herself, and only successfully falls headfirst on the wall. Immediately Tedros is yelling in shock and concern and hauling her upright, making her head spin. There’s something wrong with her nose. She can feel blood running from it, down her mouth and chin, probably ruining her dress further, but more importantly there’s _something wrong with her nose._

“Oh, _shit,”_ Tedros swears as he gets a good look at her. Agatha stumbles as he tries to set her onto her feet, her head lolling in her dizziness, and in response he hauls her up, bridal style, in his arms.

“Don’t _do_ that, _what_ are you—“ she tries to protest, but he’s already rushing towards the exit with her in his arms. The rain is hitting, the wind blowing it onto the roof. Her books will be ruined. She’s pretty sure her nose is broken. Funny that she came up here to try and win Anemone’s favour and now she’ll walk into Beautification on Monday looking like she got into a fistfight.

“C’mon, we’ll find Dovey and she’ll fix you up,” Tedros assures her as they reenter the castle. Dovey is in the dining hall, last Agatha knew, with all the parents.

“No, no, no,” she says, suddenly, full of fear and shame, “Tedros, don’t take me down there, _seriously.”_  
  
What if Beatrix saw her? Beatrix’s _parents?_ It’s bad enough she’ll have to face her classmates like this, but their _elders?_ The ones who’ve been through here before without a hitch? They’ll all see how much of an unfortunate fraud she was, they’ll all laugh at her, all her hardwork for nothing, just because she forgot to update a shoelace charm and _broke her stupid nose—_ “Agatha, your _nose._ You need medical attention.”  
  
“I was training to be a healer — _put me down!”_ She shouts and he stops dead, trying to carefully help her back to her feet. Agatah pushes him away and touches her nose gingerly. _“Lord,_ just let me do this; I _know_ how to do this.”

“What if you get it wrong?” Tedros worries, standing in front of her with wide, worried eyes.  
  
“What? Do _you_ want to do it?” Agatha asks him, holding her now-bloodied hands out to him. He shakes his head, looking a little afraid of how erratic she’s become. “Didn’t think so. Hold on.” She counts down from three, inhaling slowly, and then with a sickening crack, she snaps it back into place and then howls in pain. “Oh, oh my _lord,_ hang on—“

And then Agatha passes out.

* * *

When she wakes, she’s in bed. Her blue dress is missing, so she’s left in just her chemise, her quilt pulled up to her clavicle. Her hands, as far as she can see, are clean of blood, and when she touches her nose, there’s a strip of what feels like paper lying over the bridge of it, as well as under the bottom of it, creating a sort of sling and splint. She’s slumped against a mountain of pillows keeping her mostly upright.

She looks around and finds Princess Uma sitting next to her bed reading a book. _Agatha’s_ book, more precisely — her copy of the poetry written by the maiden from _The Tale of the Three Raven’s,_ Adelina, composed during her three years, three months, three weeks, and three days silence in order to break the curse set on her brothers. It was poetry from that book she’d quoted to Tedros, and it was poetry from that book that he’d quoted back. The tale is so old, and the characters long gone now, Agatha had thought herself very important to be in possession of such a book, but Tedros had informed her that the library at Camelot held a vast collection of such books.

“Oh, you’re awake,” Uma says, brightly, putting the book aside and taking up a cube of ice from a pail beside her, and climbing onto the bed to run it against Agatha’s injury.

“How long was I out?” She asks, shivering at the slippery coolness of the ice cube, but grateful for the pain it eases.

“Oh, not too long. Half an hour?” Uma strokes some of her hair away from her face. It’s free of Tedros’s messy braid. He probably took his tie back. “You were quite a mess when Tedros brought us to you.”  
  
Agatha turns to her, surprised, “He didn’t take me into the hall?”

“No,” Uma says, frowning, “he was quite adamant you didn’t want _anyone_ to see you. You were quite a mess, I’m afraid.”  
  
Agatha looks around, as if expecting him to materialise from the wall, asking, “Where is he?”

“He’s fixing your dress. It was quite covered in blood, and there was a rip down the side,” Uma replies, throwing the melting ice cube back into the pail by the side of the bed. “He’s not allowed in girl’s dorms but he wanted to be useful. I don’t know how good he is at sewing, though, so you might want to write home for a new dress.”

“I’m sure it’s fine,” Agatha mumbles, slumping against the pillows.

“He’s a very fine young man,” she comments, and sees the alarmed look Agatha shoots her, and so amends, “and a _very_ good friend, I’m sure. He was really worried about you.”

“He stepped on my shoelace, and I tripped,” she says as Uma relaxes against the pillows by her side. “I suppose he felt guilty.”

“Why don’t you wear heels?” Uma asks, curiously, looking at her own bare feet. Agatha is reminded that she’s only a few years older than her, she’s maybe twenty-one, and thinks of how lonely she must be when she’s not teaching.

“I’d be even more accident prone in heels,” she admits, not wanting to think of all the disasters she’d cause in a pair of heels. “Plus, I like to add a bit of my Never upbringing to the uniform. Wouldn’t quite be me if I didn’t wear ugly shoes.”

“I see,” Uma says with a soft smile. She’s glad the animal stampede on her first day didn’t cause Uma to hate her completely. “Dovey would have come to sit with you, but as Dean she has to officiate events like Visitation day, so she sent me instead. And I’m quite happy to sit with you. No one to visit me, either.”

“Really?” Agatha’s surprised. _“No one?”_

“Well, I had a prince for a while. But, as you saw in my storybook, I was able to save myself, and that made him feel quite inconsequential. That and the fact that he didn’t save me made him a laughing stock in the kingdom. He started to resent me and left.” She sighs, and nudges Agatha’s knee with her own. “I’m much happier here, teaching what I’m good at and being close to my animal friends.”

Agatha knows for a fact that that’s not exactly true. She remembers the first day, when the wish fish turned into her suitcase. She thinks Uma misses her home and her prince much more than she lets on. “Besides, teachers aren’t supposed to have outside connections,” Uma sighs, and catches Agatha’s incredulous look. She didn’t know that. Uma goes on to explain, “It’s part of joining the faculty, you cut off everyone from your life outside and devote yourself to the education of your students. During fourth year, when everyone’s off on their quests, we have so many whole-faculty lunches, you wouldn’t believe how well we get along.”  
  
“My mother used to teach at Evil,” Agatha says, numbly, wondering how she’d fared with just her Evil students and colleagues for company. It couldn’t have been nearly as fun as she’d made it out to be. “Did you know that?”

“Really?” Uma looks rather surprised. “What class?”

“Uglification. She left after teaching for nearly five years and had me.”

“Immediately?”

“No, a few years after,” Agatha amends quickly. It wouldn’t do for Uma to make any lewd assumptions. “My father was from Bloodbrook, born and raised.”

The teacher hums, “What was his name?”

“Stefan,” Agatha answers, the only detail of her father she knows leaving her lips far too easily. It was almost taboo to ask about parents in Never communities, but to Ever’s lineage and family seemed to be the first questions to be asked. She supposes that’s fair when considering who you want to marry or be involved with, politically and romantically. “I think he worked at the pub? I don’t know. My mother doesn’t like to talk about it. You know how Never’s are with love. It’s so lovely until it’s painful, and it _doesn’t_ _stop_ being painful.”

“I understand that completely,” Uma agrees, softly. “I still love Kaveen, even now.”

“Really?” She shouldn’t be surprised. True Love is funny like that, but after being scorned as she was, Agatha wouldn’t be surprised if Uma was resentful to her prince. Then again, it’s being constantly drilled into her head that the Good forgive.

“Really. Even if he hates me, I still love him.” The sad quality to her voice makes Agatha fearful that she’ll have to deal with another crying person today, but Uma wipes at her own eyes, obviously trying to console herself so that Agatha won’t have to, which she finds very considerate. “We were best friends, we were supposed to spend our lives together. Love is so, _so_ painful. But it’s worth it when you have it.”

She turns her slightly watery gaze on Agatha, warmth present in them despite her melancholy. “One day, I hope you know exactly what I mean.”  
  
Agatha doesn’t want to be so in love it hurts. She thinks it’s unreasonable. But she just nods instead of saying that.

Uma stands from the bed, giving Agatha a surveying look. “You should be alright, for now, as long as you’re not nauseous or dizzy. Your nose will be pretty bruised for a while, and it’ll be pretty painful to put pressure on even after it’s healed, but it shouldn’t leave any lasting damage. You put it back into place really straight, so well done.”

“Ah, thank you,” she colours a little at being complimented. “I was training to be a healer before I came here.”  
  
“That would do it,” Uma smiles, pushing some of Agatha’s hair away from her face again. “Get some rest. If you get hungry, just catch the fairy patrol and send them down for something.”

“Alright. See you later, Professor.” Uma waves as she exits the room. Agatha lies back against the pillows. Maybe it would be good for her to sleep more. Worrying about what everyone will think on Monday won’t make it any better. She rolls over and pulls the covers over her head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Agatha gets to swear now. That’s an official proclamation. Agatha gets to swear and Tedros gets to shed some toxic masculinity.
> 
> Thanks for reading!! Chapter four should be out Monday night/Tuesday morning next week, and we're getting to Trial by Tale territory, folks!!


	4. you said i could’ve been a better friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Oh, don’t worry about it,” she grins. “I’ll be right in front of you.”
> 
> Tedros brightens, grabbing her ankle and setting the heel of her clump on his shoulder. “Want to team up?” He offers, enthusiastically, and Agatha has a vision of Hester faking barfing at the sight of the two of them, a united front in the Blue Forest.
> 
> “If you can find me, sure,” she replies, the best non-answer she can give.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from “Nonbeliever” by Lucy Dacus
> 
> We’re hitting angst city this chapter folks!! Still some good fluff (and a little romance if you look closely enough ;) but Be Aware •_•
> 
> We now also have a fic playlist, here for your listening pleasure: [was i most complete...?](https://open.spotify.com/user/jemmylouphil/playlist/3SChU9r0ynLD2L6SF9I4U4?si=KWw9fvwPTHKS9SMprgWaJg)
> 
> Hope you like it!!

“This is what I was afraid of,” Professor Anemone sobs on Monday morning, as if Agatha had been a beautiful, cherished student, whose face had now been forever marred by a terrible accident. Agatha sits stoically in her seat, the bruising spread around her nose and eyes, her splint and bandages still in place.

The girls in her class had been sniggering about it since she showed her face at breakfast this morning. Tedros had urged her to ignore them, keeping up a steady dialogue about everything she missed while she was on bedrest. He’d presented her with her rescued dress the day after, rip magically stitched back together so splendidly she couldn’t tell where it had been. He also delivered back her textbooks which had been soaked by the rain, but saved by him and Chaddick staying up late to dry them. Apparently Chaddick had sulked through most of the activity and called Tedros a simpleton to be helping Agatha like a henchman. Apparently, that’s where the bruise on his jaw had come from. Agatha simply doesn’t know why any disagreement must end in a fistfight for them.

(“It was a fight for your honour!” Tedros had protested, looking hurt that she’d even suggest he liked to fight for fun.

Agatha had snorted, “What honour?”)

“Through brutish behaviours and hobbies, Agatha has delivered to us a very final message: beauty is fragile, and if you engage in such activities, yours will be lost to you,” Anemone proclaims, the girls around her alternating between nodding at their teacher and whispering to each other.

“For your information, professor,” Agatha pipes up, irritated by the direction Anemone’s opening statements are going, “I tripped on my shoelaces. This has nothing to do with my self defence training.”  
  
“Shoelaces!” Anemone looks shaken. “Another example of brutish behaviour! The student handbook dictates you must wear the school mandated uniform, which you churlishly disobey!”

She sighs, “I’m not comfortable walking in heels.”  
  
“Then you’ll never be a very good princess, will you?” The girls all nod in agreement once more. Agatha balls her hands into fists, her leg bouncing below her desk in irritation. 

“I’m never going to be a princess at all, at this rate. If you don’t set up challenges that are fair to our individual social standings, I'll never be anything of circumstance,” she argues, feeling more angry than she has in a while. Even when she was speaking on very similar things to Dovey it wasn’t exactly anger, just the feeling of helplessness and pent up frustration. “Professor, if you’d only accept that I was raised differently to many of your other students, I think you’d see much more engagement from me in class.”

“Agatha,” Anemone says in a simpering tone, her eyes hard, “allowing you a handicap is unfair to everyone else.”  
  
“Oh my lord.” Agatha bursts, getting to her feet so suddenly that her chair screeches against the floor as it moves out from under her. Her fists rest where she slammed them on her desk. She has her teacher’s full attention, now. “Look, make fun of my looks and my uniform all you want, but _don’t_ pretend that adjusting how you execute class challenges would negatively affect all the other girls in this class.”

“This is insubordination,” Anemone warns her in a low voice, all pretense gone.

“Don’t you find it even the slightest bit ridiculous having it in for me just because of my lack of experience and looks?” She demands, standing her ground. “Don’t you find it _exhausting_ having me already placed in bottom ranks, no matter _what_ you’re judging us on?”

“I’ll hear no more about it,” Anemone dismisses her.

“Professor,” pipes up a new voice. “She has a point.”  
  
“Pardon me,” Anemone says, gaining back her soft smile, “Beatrix, dear, I must have misheard you.”

“I agree with Agatha,” Beatrix says, unfalteringly. She too rises to her feet, hands clasped in front of her, face carefully, _gracefully_ blank. “And you are being needlessly cruel to her after she has sustained an injury. That’s _not_ very Good of you.” 

Anemone goes a shade of pink, _“Pardon_ me—”

“You’re pardoned,” Beatrix interrupts, silencing Anemone. Reena, just to Beatrix’s right, takes one of her hands and squeezes it. Beatrix rolls her shoulders back and continues, “You’re ranking us unfairly. Do you know the ranks she gets in other classes, Professor? She has top ranks, _all the time._ She’s very smart, and she learns quickly, and it’s _unbelievable_ that you’d be so prejudiced towards her, just because of her upbringing, looks, and quirks.” She glances around the room at her staring classmates. “You wouldn’t judge Kiko for her short hair, or Reena for her cultural practices, or me for my size. So, why do you consistently bully Agatha just because she grew up thinking she was a Never?”

Anemone looks between them, shocked, for a moment, at their sudden and surprising united front. Then her shock dissipates and she glowers at them. “Dishwashing duties for a week. Both of you.” She turns to her blackboard, acting as if nothing happened. “Today’s lesson is about the best way to ensure your ball date will stay true…”

Agatha, to no one’s surprise, receives bottom ranks, once again. Beatrix is ranked at number ten, the first time Agatha’s seen her ranked any lower than four in this class. She drifts through the rest of the day in a daze, still surprised by Beatrix’s well-intentioned interruption. She has a very similar argument with Pollux during Princess Etiquette, but he shuts it down much quicker, conducting another dance lesson.

For the rest of the day she wonders what brought on Beatrix’s sudden interjection, and she keeps glancing at her. Beatrix never looks back, obviously having said her piece. Still, she itches until dinner is finished and she’s sent to the kitchens with Beatrix.

“Why did you stand up for me?” She asks as she dries a dish. Beatrix sighs, as if she was dreading this exact line of questioning. “No seriously. I have to know. Up until now I thought you didn’t like me.”

“Honestly? I just got sick of it. I couldn’t stand it anymore,” she scrubs a plate and hands it off to Agatha as she speaks. “The way she treats you. Her _and_ Pollux... _and_ half the girls here!” Beatrix stops, looks up at her. “And _me._ It’s not fair, and it’s _certainly_ not Good.”

“Why the sudden change of heart?” She questions, still a little suspicious.

“Because I saw my mother for the first time in three months on Saturday. It was like a wakeup call,” Beatrix explains, looking despondent at the mere mention of the woman. “It was the happiest day of her life, when I got my acceptance letter. She’d never gone, you see, though she always wanted to, so when _I_ was accepted — in the same year as King Arthur’s son, no less — she saw in me the life she could never have. She said _you grab this opportunity with both hands, Trixy. You work hard, don’t let anyone get in your way, and one day you’ll be queen of Camelot.”_ She sighs again. “And so for _three months_ I was out of her reach. She couldn’t touch me. I acted miserable to everyone and I misbehaved and, despite everything, I tried to get on Tedros’ good side — just to prove that I could, honestly — shoving away anyone who tried it first, and I did it because I _knew_ that no one would stop me. People make excuses for the actions of beautiful people.

“And then I saw her again on Saturday, and I realised I’d been acting exactly like her. Her _carbon copy._ I stopped dead; I was horrified. How had I let myself become that? Why was it so _easy?_ So, I thought about it, a lot. I thought about the consequences of my actions, the people I’d hurt just trying to get my way, and I realised that I hadn’t hurt literally anyone else nearly as much as you.” They’ve stopped washing the dishes, just standing across from one another, Agatha silently listening, with her drying towel balled up in her restless hands, Beatrix playing with her scrubbing brush. “So I decided to change, to be _better_ — which is what this school is supposed to inspire — it’s what _you_ do, every single day, and don’t think I haven’t noticed. I think that if Anemone and Pollux weren’t constantly giving you bottom ranks you’d be at the top, every single week. Because you’re intelligent and talented and extremely eloquent — I heard the way you were talking today, you know exactly what you’re going to say five minutes before you say it, and it’s _incredible._

“So, I’ll understand if you’re not willing to forgive me for all the things I’ve said and done, but all I want is to make amends. And I’m going to work hard to make amends.”

There’s a moment of silence after Beatrix stops speaking. Agatha just stares, her hands very still, her mind running a mile a minute to comprehend that this girl, the one she’d thought hated her, asking for forgiveness. “I don’t know that I can actually say anything except you’re forgiven,” she finally says, a smile spreading across her face at the thought that Beatrix wanted so badly to be better that she wanted to apologise for inconveniencing and annoying Agatha.

“Really?” She brightens. It makes Agatha smile wider.

“After a speech like that?” Agatha turns back to the dishes, not used to so much positive energy and feeling overwhelmed by it. “You were mesmerizing, I think you were made for public speaking. You’re gonna make a great queen one day.”  
  
Beatrix gets back to the sink, dunking another plate in. “I don’t even want to be the queen of Camelot.”

“You don’t?” Agatha asks, surprised. Beatrix had said she’d mostly been trying to get Tedros’ attention to prove she could, but it still surprises her that that kind of power and influence didn’t tempt her.

“No. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with Tedros; I like him well enough, but I don’t know him half as well as you do,” Beatrix explains, sounding whimsical. “And I don’t know what _you_ want to do with your life, but I’m sure you’re gonna change things for the better.”

Agatha chuckles a little and admits, “I don’t even know what I’m gonna do for _Winter Solstice,_ so…”

“I do know what I want, though. You know, when I decided to change my attitude the first person I talked to was Reena. She’s been my best friend since I was six. We were penpals. I didn’t know why a real life princess wanted to talk to me but I feel blessed every day that she did.” She gazes absently at the wall, a wide smile gracing her features. “She’s due to inherit the throne of Shazabah when her father retires. She’ll be Sultana. And, as long as everything goes to plan — meaning so long as we both manage to not be turned into daisies by the end of three years — I’ll be by her side the whole way. Her consort and wife. We’ve already decided. And she’s going to create change, and peace, and social equity, and I’m going to love her for the rest of my days.”

“Wow, you have got _everything_ planned out,” Agatha comments, thinking back to Uma’s words the other night about how _worth it_ painful love is. She won’t ask Beatrix, but she wonders if their love is even a little painful, or if it’s clean of that.  
  
“I’ve had a while to think about it,” Beatrix tells her, all matter-of-factly. “I’ll bet you had a plan before all of this, as well.”

“I was going to learn to be a healer, like my mom,” Agatha shrugs, her nose twinging as if muscle memory recalls when last she claimed to be a healer. “It seemed like the best course of action.”

“And _now?”_ Her tone is cautious.

“Now,” Agatha laughs, “I’m just trying to get through the year without failing.”  
  
“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Beatrix tells her, bumping their shoulders together in a show of camaraderie. “I’ll back you up as long as you need me to.”

“I really appreciate that. I’m glad…” Agatha goes pink again, the rash of it running down her neck and chest as it always does. “I’m glad that we got to talk like this.”  
  
Beatrix laughs for a second, “I feel like I did most of the talking.” 

“Like I said, it was mesmerizing,” she replies, and they continue washing the dishes in a friendly quiet.

* * *

Tedros comes to watch Sophie’s lecture on Tuesday. He shows up while Agatha’s plying Anadil and Hester with lemon tarts, and says, “Is she _actually_ wearing a sari?”

Hester gives Tedros a poisonous look and shoves a tart in her mouth, chewing loudly as she turns pointedly away from him. Agatha rolls her eyes at the witch and laughs, “You should have seen her last Thursday. She was wearing a full kimono, plus the traditional makeup. It felt wrong to even look at her.”  
  
He crosses his arms over his chest, and frowns at Sophie from afar, _“Very_ committed to the Black is the New Black lesson, huh?”

“You haven’t been to one of these before, have you?” Anadil asks, curiously, her rats perking up as she peers at him. “I think I’d have remembered you being at one of these.”

“Agatha tells me about them when I help her out with self-defence stuff,” he explains cheerfully, and Anadil nods, face neutral as ever.

Hester raises an eyebrow at Agatha, surreptitiously, and Agatha responds by pinching her arm.

“Ah,” Anadil says, dully, “Well, she’s very excited to see you here. Can you tell?”

Agatha sure can. Sophie keeps casting excited glances towards the back at them.

“Yes, I can tell,” he responds, rolling his eyes, “She keeps _giggling.”_

“It’s infuriating,” Hester snaps irritably. A Never in front of them shushes her and Hester stamps on her foot. “She started doing these because she wanted to prove how charitable she was to you, but it’s clear that it’s an empty gesture, so how can it be a purely Good action?”

Agatha just shrugs, and takes a bite of her last lemon tart. “Look, she’s taking her own path. Eventually it’ll fizzle out and she’ll have to try something else,” she comments as she swallows the bite. “Either way, she’s currently failing her classes, and the only thing she has to show for it is a brand new wardrobe and a loyal following.”

“I don’t see how she’s going to get her Ball invite and Kiss before the Solstice.”  
  
Agatha stops dead and turns to the witches. “Sorry,” she says, slowly, “did you say _Ball invite?”_

“Didn’t you hear?” Anadil asks, in a bored tone. “She’s intent on getting Teddy here to take her to the Snow Ball.”  
  
“But she’s a Never,” he says, confused.

“Mhmm. So why she got it into her head that you’ll take her anyway is beyond me,” the albino witch says, serenely. She cocks her head at Tedros and continues, “If _I_ were you I’d walk away and never look back. Maybe then she’ll give up and I can stop waking in the middle of the night to her sewing fucking ballgowns on the floor.”

Tedros does as instructed, leaving them all with a pleasant smile and a hand briefly on Agatha’s elbow. The witches give her a pointed look. Agatha just shoves what’s left of her lemon tart in her mouth and crosses her arms over her chest. _“Don’t.”_

Anadil shrugs, innocently, and Hester snickers until Agatha pinches her again, this time on her side.

By the time lunch is over and the Never’s have dispersed to get to class on time, Sophie’s cleaning up by the stump and Agatha’s standing not five metres from her, unnoticed. She clears her throat and Sophie looks up. She immediately brightens when she sees her, and bounds over, a new spring in her step.

“What did he say?” She immediately asks, her words coming out in a rush. “What does he think? What colour is he wearing to the ball—?”  
  
“You need to stop,” Agatha interrupts, mouth set in a thin line.

“What?” Sophie looks confused, but happily so, obviously still riding off the high of seeing Tedros at one of her lectures.

Agatha sighs, running a hand down her face, “Look, I see what you’re doing, and I see the effect it’s having, and it’s great, _really,_ Sophie, but you’re on the verge of flunking out of school.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Sophie shrugs, nonchalantly, “I never _actually_ fail.”  
  
“It _does_ matter, Sophie,” Agatha replies, forcefully. “No one knows what happens to students that flunk out of school, not even the teachers.”

“Aggie, listen, it won’t let me fail,” Sophie insists, grabbing Agatha’s erratically moving hands and holding them still between their chests. “I’ve been watching it. No matter what, _every_ time it looks like I’m about to, someone else falls below me and I’m spared. I’m convinced the School Master is manipulating it to keep me here, so why should I care?”

Agatha, if possible, frowns deeper, “You should care, Sophie, because this is all an act.”

“What are you talking about?” She asks, rolling her eyes and releasing Agatha’s hands, obviously bored now that one attempt to placate her has gone awry.

“This is a performance, surely you see that,” Agatha begs, gesturing around at Sophie’s corner of the clearing. “And _yes,_ you’re actually helping some of these girls, and that must feel really good, but you have to know that in the long run it won’t matter because you’re doing this for selfish reasons. I mean, come on, this can’t be more important than _learning magic.”_

Sophie gives her an exasperated look and informs her, “I can’t _do_ magic, Aggie. I’ve tried.”

“Magic follows emotion. Maybe you just need to feel one strong enough that it sort of knocks it loose or something. You can’t just give up.” Sophie makes as if to walk away and Agatha grabs her hands again, holding her in place, pushing aside the fresh air feeling that arrives at the touch of Sophie’s skin to hers. “I _won’t_ see you give up, I want to see you _home,_ but I can’t do that if you neglect everything that might help you and use an empty gesture as a crutch. You just have to keep trying, I’ll help you with it.”

Sophie stares at her. The last time she’d properly talked to Sophie, they’d been sitting in mud, and Agatha had sworn _not_ to help her. Now here she is offering it.

“Agatha!” Tedros calls from the tunnel of trees that heads back to the Good castle. She’s going to be late for Good Deeds if she waits any longer.

“Just a second!” she calls back, and then turns to Sophie. “Promise me you’ll try.”

Sophie’s blank face turns reluctant. “Alright…”

Agatha smiles and pulls at the material of Sophie’s sleeve in a gesture of friendship. “Okay. See you in Forest Group.”

Then she rushes away.

(What she doesn’t know is that as Sophie watches her hurry to meet Tedros by the tunnel of trees a feeling grows in her gut, warm, persistent, large as an egg. Then Agatha kicks the back of his foot and he kicks her back and she chases him for revenge, and the feeling changes, growing colder. Her finger begins to glow a faint pink. The feeling rises, closer and closer until she can recognise it.

The feeling is envy.)

* * *

Obviously someone talked to Dovey about Agatha’s arguments with Anemone and Pollux because they both slink into class the next day, shooting her glares. They rank her still pretty low, but not lowest for her efforts in class challenges, but speak not one word to her.

Agatha’s fine with that, as it happens. Tedros is just happy to see her rank rise from forty-one to thirty-five. She beats him down during training that day, mind somewhat preoccupied by Sophie’s half-hearted performance during her lunchtime lecture. It could be that she’s gotten through to her, but her rank remains solidly at one-hundred and twenty.

Still, she participates in Yuba’s beanstalk challenge, successfully identifying the poisonous one, the edible one, and the one that Dot is disguised as. Dot happily chats to Agatha all lesson that day, obviously freed from her threatening leash by Hester, who seems to have given up on her grudge. Tedros seems charmed by her presence as well. “She’s really delightful, isn’t she,” he comments as they head back to the castle.

Agatha hums in agreement. “She’s a sweetheart. I worry sometimes that Evil’s going to be too hard on her, but she seems to be getting on alright.”

The only one of her friends she hasn’t managed to win back yet is Hort, and that’s because he’s made it his mission to have Sophie profess her love to him. He’s too busy salivating over her scandalously short miniskirt during Forest Group to realise that he’s free to engage with Agatha again. She’s kind of fine with it. If he discards her so quickly for a ridiculous love interest, maybe he’s better off chasing tails. Hester never liked him as much as Agatha did.

Before she knows it, two weeks have passed and her studying has paid off, pitching her rank up to eighteen. Sophie’s lunchtime lectures have decreased in size and regularity since Agatha’s conversation with her, and instead their studying underneath a tree has catapulted her rank up to twenty. She’s very easily bored by Agatha’s tutoring, but it’s clear that it’s paying off, because the forty minutes she spends drilling buzz words and facts into her head mean Sophie can recite answers just off the top of her distracted head. Plus, she’s endlessly grateful to eat Agatha’s food.

(Hester and Anadil still drop by for her desserts, so Agatha bids farewell to her profiteroles and hands them over, desperate to stay in their good graces. It does mean her stomach grumbles almost nonstop between breakfast and dinner, but if that’s the price she pays to feed her Never friends and keep them in her good books, she’ll take it.)

It seems as though she’s found a sort of peace here, finally. No dainty bullies, as Beatrix mostly trades smiles and knowing glances with her in classes; no friends turned enemies; no love stricken reader witch-girls hounding her for tips to make her best friend fall in love with her; and best of all, no failing ranks. Agatha can finally breathe as she turns over to sleep at unreasonable times of night, or, more often, hours in the early morning.

Between her own studies, tutoring Sophie at lunch, self-defence training with Tedros, and classes themselves, Agatha finds her days have become jam packed. Weekends are relieving for their emptiness, just some homework to complete and keep her a little busy, but mostly reading from Good’s extensive library and walking the halls of the castle, eating snacks from the lunch buffet. It’s the best when they play music in the common rooms and it echoes down through the crystal castle. Agatha finds herself swaying on staircases to the far-off beats, practicing her waltz with phantom partners in the entrance hall, and hiking her skirt up for energetic moves on her bed when it blasts through the walls.

It feels like everything is starting to go right.

* * *

Tedros. Reena. Beatrix. Chaddick. Tristan. Nicholas. Kiko. Giselle. Bastian. Agatha.

Number ten out of the top ten Good students. Meaning she’s become eligible for the Trial by Tale.

Hester. Anadil. Ravan. Mona. Vex. Dot. Sophie. Hort. Brone. Flynt.

All her friends from Evil selected as well. What luck she has. She stands awkwardly on the Theatre stage, last in the line of Good, only a metres worth of separation between her and Hester. Hester winks at her.

Pollux reminds them that classes for the rest of the week are dismissed for everyone except the Trial competitors, and that homework will be distributed accordingly. And as for the Trial competitors, challenges will always pertain to the Trial and however low your rank indicates how soon you’ll enter the forest.

Agatha shivers. She can do this. She’s spent nearly four month studying spells and defence tricks. She can survive a few hours in the Blue Forest. She absolutely can.

For the next four days, she hovers between being fully present and being far away in her head, worrying about what may happen. She hasn’t written to her mother about this development, still angry at her for missing Visitation day, but Anadil must have mentioned it in a letter to her mother, because Callis sends congratulations anyway, making her promise to be safe and beat them all. Agatha crumples up the letter and throws it against the wall

The challenges usually consist of recognising spells and conjuring counterspells, or answering riddles, or fending off mutant pumpkins and animate scarecrows. They’re allowed to have one registered weapon, and a shield, along with their surrender flag. Tedros obviously chooses Excalibur, and the rest of the boys choose their training swords. Against her better judgement, Agatha refrains from picking a weapon, like the other girls. She can defend herself well enough. Tedros has seen to that.

They’re fitted for their Trial uniforms the day before and Tedros accompanies Agatha because he’s probably bored. Anemone takes her waist with a tight tape measure, andAgatha wonders what could be possibly entertaining about _this._ “What’s your plan?” He asks.

“Hm?” They’re in one of the candy classrooms in Honor tower, the walls splashed with motivational posters — _You’re Not You When You’re Frowning! Put On A Smile!_ says a copper-haired Princess with a too-wide, incredibly toothy smile.

“For the Trial. It looks like you’ll be heading in just before me.” As usual, Tedros is sitting at the top of his ranks, but unusually, Agatha is right behind him.

“Um, I have no idea. Hope I don’t get stabbed?” She sighs as Anemone releases the tape measure from around her waist, scribbling in her notebook and muttering about _last minute uniforms_ with her pencil between her teeth. “I heard Kiko say she’s going to hide under the bridge. She invited me to join her.”

“She’s going to _actually die,”_ Tedros comments, grimly.

“She didn’t get into the Trial accidentally,” Agatha replies. “She’s very talented, she’s just not the best strategist.”

Anemone leaves the room. Agatha slumps and Tedros laughs, obviously amused at the airs Agatha puts on for her teacher and the barely-concealed dislike for her that Anemone holds.

“Alright, what’s _your_ plan?” She demands, irritably.

“My plan?” He repeats, bewildered.

“Yes, _your plan,_ oh Great Strategist,” Agatha says, and pushes his shoulder. “Enlighten me.”

Tedros scratches the back of his neck, looking thoughtful, “Er, _well…”_

“Yeah, I thought so,” Agatha snorts, stepping down from the platform Anemone had her on and brushing down the skirt of her blue dress. “You can’t really plan for this stuff, Tedros.”

He groans, sitting down heavily on a nearby chair, covering his face with his hands. She’s seen how tense he’s been since Monday, so obviously he has a lot on his mind. “I just _hate_ waiting.”

“I know you do,” Agatha replies as she hops up onto the desk in front of him, nudging his shoulder with the point of her clump. “And you’ll have to wait the longest, because you’re going in last.”

“I’m so stupid,” he moans, batting her nudges away.

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” she grins. “I’ll be right in front of you.”

Tedros brightens, grabbing her ankle and setting the heel of her clump on his shoulder. “Want to team up?” He offers, enthusiastically, and Agatha has a vision of Hester faking barfing at the sight of the two of them, a united front in the Blue Forest.

“If you can find me, sure,” she replies, the best non-answer she can give.

“So you _do_ have a plan?” Tedros asks, interested, hand moving up her ankle and planting on the wool of her stockings. It shuffles some of the skirt up her leg as well, over her knee in an almost scandalous manner.

“It’s just an idea currently,” Agatha allows, slightly irritated by his line of questioning, but in an affectionate sort of way, which is puke-worthy in itself, and her past self would be giving her a black eye for even recognising such a thing. “I need to work out the kinks, and _then_ it becomes a plan.”

He cocks his head, and asks in a hushed sort of voice, “Are you going to tell me what it is?”

She leans forward, their noses almost touching, planting her other foot on the side of his chair, just to the left of his thigh, and, at a similar volume, replies, “If you can find me.”

It is at this point that Anemone returns and starts shrieking about improper conduct and behaviour between students, orders them both five feet away from each other and out of her classroom, _don’t you have homework to do? Bloody_ _teenagers._

The Trial by Tale does not go to plan. Not in the slightest. Her plan was, initially, to mogrify as a small insect for the three hours that the incantation lasted, then go to the pine forest for the remainder of the Trial, disguised as a sapling. And that is not what happens.

What happens is her plan goes smoothly for all of five minutes. At ten-fifteen, Agatha steps towards the gates to the Blue Forest, her hood pulled up completely. She casts a final look at Tedros, who shoots her a tentative thumbs up. She shoots one back and turns to enter.

Eight other pairs have already entered. Five competitors already surrendered — Kiko first, then Brone and Vex, followed by Bastian and Giselle. Eleven students are still active in the forest. Four left to go in. Agatha against eight Never’s. One of which was Sophie. She truly wonders how she’s fared, given she managed to flunk all the challenges and enter first.

Immediately upon entering, she can tell that the entrance isn’t a hub of activity. Screams and crashes from far off echo, and Agatha shivers, pulling her cloak tight around her, replaying her plan. Anadil nods to her as she heads towards the pumpkin fields. “Good luck,” she says, monotone.

“You too,” Agatha replies. She has a plan. She can do this. She only has to survive a few hours. And who knows, maybe Tedros will find her. Maybe he won’t. Maybe someone will catch him and he’ll surrender before she ever sees him. Maybe she’ll have to leave before he gets in. Either way she’s not making progress just standing there

She sprints for the tall trees right by the gates and immediately mogrifies into a fly, landing on a high up branch. She sits there and breathes for a long time, watching the sky, praying she’ll blink and it will have begun to lighten. Agatha blinks. The sky is dark, and the fields surrounding her are still icy blue, the supernatural arctic light illuminating every portion of the Blue Forest.

It’s only a few minutes later when the screaming erupts. Many screams, two fireworks signifying surrenders, both red, and then assorted animal sounds as someone probably mogrifies quickly, probably someone very inexperienced at mogrifying, probably someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing and is praying for luck—

A bright pink elephant bursts into the fern fields and Agatha really should just let this play out. But, as always, she has to go and make it her problem, screw the plan.

She quickly changes into a dove and launches herself from the branch, diving towards the stampeding elephant and her pursuers. Reena and Chaddick are chasing her with a strung bow and arrow and a single golden wolf hound. Mona and Flynt are hot on their tail, looking murderous.  
  
Agatha’s about to collide with Sophie, praying she’ll turn into something smaller and swoops Chaddick and Reena. Hopefully they’ll forgive her later. She’s not sure they will. Sophie changes into a nightingale and Agatha snatches her out of the air with her claws, flapping away, towards the pine forests. She waves a wing, the tip of it glowing orange, and the clearing goes pitch black.

“What did you just do?" Sophie shrieks as they hurtle, blindly, towards the grove, and probably the ground.

“Instant darkness spell. Read it in one of your textbooks,” Agatha says, hurriedly, and winces as she realises they’re about to crash land. “Brace yourself—”

They hit the ground hard, and the darkness rushes away. Agatha thinks she’s dislocated her shoulder in the landing, turned back human upon hitting the ground. She scampers onto her knees, and uses her right hand to drag an equally naked and scratched up Sophie into the underbrush as footsteps thump their direction. She shoves some nettles into her mouth and then into Sophie’s and mutters, _“Floradora pinescora!”_

With a pop, she and Sophie transform into identical saplings and Agatha hushes as Mona and Ravan crash into the clearing. “They’re not here.”

“Never mind them,” Ravan says, rolling his eyes. “Let’s go back and finish off those Ever’s.”

They rush off in the direction that they came from and Agatha breathes a sigh of relief that they didn’t notice the gashes she’d left in the soft pine nettle floor from where she dragged Sophie out of harms way. “Why did you save me?” Sophie suddenly asks, sounding small.

“Because they actually want to kill you,” Agatha answers, honestly. “They won’t give you the chance to drop your handkerchief.”

Her left shoulder is screaming in pain, and she knows she should turn back human and fix it, but what if someone sees her? There are little cuts all over her body from crashing — she thinks she took the brunt of it, holding Sophie tight to her chest as she was — and her knees are raw from being skinned on the pine nettle floor.

“Do we just stay here?” Sophie questions after a minute of silence, obviously bored after her near-death experience which is about the most _Sophie_ thing to happen of the night.

“The spell lasts for a good few hours — longer than mogrification, in any case,” Agatha answers, tiredly, wishing she was in her bed. Her home bed, preferably, but at this point she’d take her dorm bed. Only one more month and then it’s the Solstice and she can sleep in her own bed for a whole fortnight. “This was going to be my second half of the night, but you caused quite a scene.”  
  
Her companion seems to consider this for a minute. And then she says, “You should be taking me out. I’d understand if you did.”

“That’s not in the spirit of the game,” Agatha replies, aghast that she’d say such a thing, even if it’s true. “I’d never attack you in the actual Woods.”

“You’d also never help me,” Sophie mutters.

“That’s not true,” and she shouldn’t be hurt by the accusation, but stupid bleeding heart that she is, she finds herself hurt. “I _absolutely would.”_

“Really.” Not a question.

“Of course. What, I’m going to grow up thinking I’m a Never, where all my friends are Never’s and my mother’s a Never, and the minute I get sent to the school for Good I’m supposed to forget all my loyalties and attack them on sight?” She huffs, pain shooting down her shoulder from even the slightest movements she makes. “That’s _ridiculous._ I’m not stupid.”

More silence. It’s welcome. Agatha could really go for a nap right now. It wouldn’t be helpful to their current situation, and it wouldn’t be safe, given that anyone could stumble upon them at any moment and a. break them in sapling form and/or b. identify them as magical trees and reveal them to the outside world. Nope, napping is off the table. She’ll rest once she gets out of this nightmare.

“Thank you, for saving me,” Sophie whispers. “You really didn’t have to do that.”

Agatha sighs, “I wasn’t just going to let you die, Sophie.”

More fireworks go off. White ones. More Ever’s out. Two, maybe three. That leaves nine of them. Nine. Tedros is in the Forest. Panic surges through her, and she jerks slightly, making her shoulder scream in pain again. Agatha whimpers softly, unable to do anything to fix it. She’ll have to wait it out for the next few hours.

“Are you okay?” Sophie whispers, worriedly.

“Peachy,” Agatha grits back, and they go silent. For a long time, it is silent. Hours, even. In the intervening time, two more Never fireworks go off, intermingled with two Ever ones, heralded by screams of terror. Seems they were all got by the same trap. Figures.

Five left. Agatha prays Tedros wasn’t caught in that trap, that he’s still out there somewhere. She hopes he’ll find her, though she gave no clue as to where she’d be. A scream from not far off echoes, followed by red fireworks. It sounded like Anadil. Agatha tenses, awaiting the white fireworks that are sure to come after Hester cuts down whoever caught Ani out.

Instead of fireworks, the heavy thud of running feet. Two pairs. Hester. And Tedros, bursting into the clearing, looking worse for wear. Agatha and Sophie stand silently, saplings in the underbrush, watching the two size each other up.

It plays out how you might imagine it would.

Hester engages her demon tattoo fully, splitting it into five, ruthlessly and efficiently dangerous pieces, probably just to scare Tedros, and she slices him a bit. Agatha watches in horror, knowing she should do something. Tedros manages to save himself, slamming Hester’s handkerchief down on the ground, sending her wailing back to the gate. Her demon isn’t quite through, though. Agatha makes her entrance, swiping up his abandoned shield, though her shoulder protests quite loudly, and slams the demon arm into steam against the pine nettled ground, screaming with the effort of the action while her shoulder is still dislocated.

He stares at her from where he lies, bloody and bewildered on his back. Agatha is modestly covered by the shield.

“Couldn’t let you have all the glory, could I?” She says, sheepishly, tears of pain and effort running down her face.

“Was she actually going to kill me?” Tedros asks, a little absently. She thinks he’s been through quite an ordeal and probably desperately needs sleep, after stressing all week and fighting all night. It’s probably almost morning.

“I wouldn’t say so, no,” Agatha informs him and helps him sit up with her good arm, the bottom of the shield planted against the ground. “But she probably would have thought it was very funny if she had.”

“Aggie, I don’t have any clothes,” Sophie calls from the underbrush, her spell undone as soon as Agatha’s had been. Her blonde head pops up from behind a bush and she waves at Tedros awkwardly.

He looks between them, expression caught between hurt and furious. “Have you been hiding with _Sophie_ the whole time?” He demands.

“Unlike you, the others were _absolutely_ going to kill _her,”_ Agatha sighs, tired and in pain and exhausted by the trend of this conversation. “I did what I thought was right.”  
  
“I thought we were supposed to be a team, Agatha,” he says, anger melting into sadness, and she really can’t deal with him crying right now, especially when she’s still kind of crying, and her shoulder is still dislocated.  
  
“Uh, we never _actually_ agreed that. I just said sure as long as you can find me. And you _didn’t_ find me.” He frowns at the ground, probably cursing her name that she’s right. “And I _rescued_ you, too, so I think a thank you is in order.”  
  
“Aggie, darling,” Sophie calls from behind her bush, plumping at her limp hair, “stop flirting and find me some clothes please.”  
  
Agatha sighs, giving her a withering stare. “Unless you missed it, I’m also naked Sophie,” she says as daylight breaks over the horizon. The Trial is over.

Tedros quickly strips off his cloak and tosses it to her, and Agatha points a glowing finger at Sophie, wrapping her body in vines to cover her nakedness.

Teachers and students alike rush into the Blue Forest as Agatha pulls the cloak tight around her, and they turn their shocked gazes on the three students who emerge from the pine forest. Three victors. One Evil, two Good. All three partially naked (Tedros’s unifrom is in shredded shambles).

It’s unprecedented. It’s historic. It’s probably problematic, but that’s not _Agatha’s_ problem right now. After all, she just won a third of the Trial by Tale. And as soon as someone pops her shoulder back into place, she’s going to bed.

But see, the trouble with having three victors for a contest that presses for only one is that when it comes to choose between Agatha and Tedros for who gets the Captains badge, it comes down to who will stay conscious the longest.

Sure, Agatha’s shivering, naked apart from a tattered cloak, covered in scrapes, bruises, and cuts, knees skinned, shoulder dislocated and whole body jarred from a crash landing, but Tedros got stabbed a couple of times. In the legs and the arms and has a huge scrape down his chest. He’s bleeding a lot more than her. A lot heavier too. 

He loses consciousness first just due to blood loss. It’s only a little bit funny, because Agatha actually cares about him and doesn’t want him to bleed out. He walks around for the next week covered in bandages, and Agatha has to walk around in a sling, and Dovey knows they’re not dumb beyond comprehension but she also warns them off physical training for a while.

“I know it’s tempting,” she tells them, sternly, from one side of her candy desk, “but please refrain. You’ll only end up hurting each other more and then where will we be?”

The first snow of the season falls at lunch the next week, and almost as soon as it does, two huge gazebos are erected in the centre of the clearing, both bearing tables and chairs. Sophie has looked pale and wan ever since the Trial. Hester says she hasn’t been sleeping well. Nightmares, she explains. Bad ones.

“Makes sense,” says Agatha, over a bowl of beef, noodles, and capsicum stir fry. “She was in there way longer than I was. Who knows what she ran into?”

“No, I don’t think it’s about the Trial,” Anadil replies. “It’s not like that. It’s not fear. It’s dread — and terror.”

And Sophie looks it, too. The bags under her eyes grow, her hair limp where it hangs around her shoulders, her back slumped. If Agatha didn’t know any better, she’d think this was a sign of some sort. A warning of bad things to come.

She ignores such thoughts. Sophie will get back on her high horse and continue on, bright as ever. Agatha’s sure of it.

* * *

“Agatha?” She looks up. She was packing her trunk and stopped, holding the tattered cloak Tedros had thrown her at the end of the Trial, the white handkerchief she didn’t use stuffed in an inside pocket. Tedros is standing in the doorway. He shouldn’t be here. He’s not allowed in her dorm. She supposes it doesn’t matter now.

“Sorry, I phased out,” Agatah apologises, feeling addled. She has since the Circus, and everything that came after. It was only a few days ago. It feels like an age and a second at the same time. “Have you been there long?”

“No,” Tedros answers quickly, and his concerned expression deepens as he steps further into the room. “You just had a very strange look on your face.”

She scratches the back of her neck, her shoulder protesting minutely with the effort of the action. “It’s been a strange couple of days,” she excuses it, half-hearted and tired. She just wants to be with her mother. No letters since before Visitation day, she must be worried sick. Agatha’s not sure what she can tell her.

“You can say that again,” he snorts, flicking part of the mural on the wall, a princess picking a rose from a thorny bush.

“Did you…” Agatha begins and pauses, not sure how to phrase the question without coming off rude. “Did you need something?”

He inhales deeply through his nose, straightening up with his arms crossed over his chest. “I have a stupid question.”

Her stomach drops. She’s silently begging him not to bring up Sophie’s trick in the ballroom at Evil. When she’d convinced him that Agatha was Evil, and he’d strung a bow meant for her heart, while she held Excalibur to his throat. 

_(The betrayal in his eyes hurts her probably more than the arrow will. For a split second, even as she holds a hand out to him, begging him softly to think about what he’s doing, Excalibur held limply in her hand, Agatha really thinks he’s going to do it. It breaks her heart, it truly does, but she really thinks that Tedros is going to kill her._

_And then he lowers his bow. His eyes fill with tears. He covers his mouth with his hand. Agatha watches him go to his knees, overcome by the horror at his own actions._

_“Well,” Sophie drawls as Agatha goes to his side, taking his hands in hers and sobbing slightly, herself. “That wasn’t the ending I was expecting. Seems I underestimated your loyalty to each other.”_

_“Shut up,” Agatha hisses as Tedros brings her hands to his mouth, whispering his apologies, begging for forgiveness for being so stupid._

_“Just thought the Storian would like a gritty ending — the boy kills his best friend, the witch triumphant, the sins of the father repeated—“_

_“I said. Shut. Up.” Agatha growls, picking Excalibur back up as she stalks towards the girl she’d once thought of as a friend. She’s crying, she notes, absently, she must look like such a mess — but she must also look dangerous, and_ _that_ _is the aura she favours._

_Sophie’s startled look changes, turning to a sly smile. “How queenly of you.”)_

Agatha still gets pangs of guilt in her belly at the thought. They all made a lot of mistakes that night. She doesn’t think she can make up for half of them.

“You don’t—“ she begins at the same time as he says, “You said I could—“

They both stop, staring at each other. Waiting for the other to continue.

Agatha drops the cloak in the trunk. “We don’t have to talk about it,” she says, voice rough. She clears her throat. “I’d prefer that, actually.”

He looks crestfallen. “Oh. Sorry.” He shuffles awkwardly on the spot, staring at the floor. “I kind of already told Dovey to change my ticket destination.”

“What?” She blinks in confusion. Ticket destination? What is he _talking about?_

“Because — well,” Tedros clears his throat, and she wonders how he’ll ever be good at making speeches as King if he can barely speak to _her,_ of all people. “Remember when you offered to host me for the Solstice?”

“Oh,” _not_ anything bad. Her eyes widen, invitation momentarily forgotten. Of course it was. Between breaking her nose, the Trial and the Circus, of course she forgot she invited him to stay for the Solstice. _“Oh!_ Right, yeah, no, of course. Um.”

“Yeah, that’s kind of what I thought. I’m not going to presume I’m still welcome after everything that happened, so I told her to get me a ticket back to Camelot.” Tedros pauses. “What were _you_ talking about?”

Fear, again, lord, she doesn’t want him to say anything, “Look, I don’t—”

His eyes widen, and he takes a step forward, hand outstretched to soothe her, “Oh, _A—”_  
  
_“Please,_ Tedros,” Agatha pleads, stepping back, “I _can’t._ There’s still a lot that doesn’t make sense, and a lot that still _hurts,_ and a lot of decisions I need to come to terms with—”

_(She’s shimmering. She’s fading. She can see herself going clear through the shimmering. She must look like the Wish Fish girl, and the wolf from the stymph attack, and—_

_“Agatha!” Tedros is screaming to be heard over the rush of the shimmering. Agatha looks back at Tedros. He looks panicked. He holds out his hand to her. She should leave him behind. He’d deserve it. After everything that’s happened tonight, his pride and fear getting in the way of what he knew to be the truth. How could she have faked an entire five months of friendship? Had he really thought she might be a witch that whole time?_

_She wants to leave him, for a moment, her horror and resentment of his actions tonight simmering in her lungs. She wants to take this chance, leave this world behind. What good has it done her, so far? All she’s known is pain and fear and shame. It’s not fair. She’s being offered a chance._

_She looks down at Sophie, safe in her arms, blood still staining her ballgown. Sophie is safe and alive and she looks normal._ _Sophie is safe._

_And what about her mother? Her mother who knows nothing of what’s happening, who will mourn her loss, who will cry for her at night. She can’t leave her mother like this. Not without saying goodbye._

_(And what of Tedros? Everything they’ve built here may have crumbled slightly, it might be broken but that doesn’t mean she can’t fix it.)_

_On a whim, on impulse, Agatha reaches for his hand, moving out of Sophie’s arms. She goes solid. She stays.)_

“—so I _really_ don’t want to talk about it,” she says, sharply, turning back to her trunk, face and neck red with a rash of embarrassment and shame. She feels so guilty about so many things. She wishes she could just forget it. But _then_ how would he act? Tiptoeing around her, trying not to let on how close he came to killing her, executing her like the witch Sophie convinced him she was.

She can’t even bear the idea of it.

Agatha closes her trunk, casting a look around the startlingly bare room for anything she might have forgotten. There’s nothing. Only her coat and cloche hat on the bed. She’s wearing the white dress today. She got Beatrix to fix the sleeves for her, only to find out her mother had been the dressmaker they’d gone to. She’d laughed with Agatha about Callis running her around the store to make up for her rudeness.

“Agatha.” His voice is quiet, trembling.

She sighs and turns towards him. “Tedros.”

Tedros looks ready to start weeping again as he says, not for the first time, “I am _really_ sorry.”

 _(“Agatha,_ _please_ _,” he’s crying, but not nearly as hard as her. She doesn’t know why. What had Sophie ever done for her?_

_(Maybe saved your life?)_

_She’s crying so hard she can barely see, still pressing at the wound in Sophie’s chest, the Storian tossed to the side. “No, no, no, come back, please, come back, Sophie. You can’t die. You have to stay.” Agatha grabs her hands and squeezes them, brings them to her mouth, kisses them in her hysteria, trying to wake her up because there’s_ _no way_ _she just watched her die. Die for_ _her_ _. “I’ll_ _make_ _you stay. Please,_ _please_ _don’t leave.”_

 _“A,” his hand touches her shoulder_ _  
_ _  
_ _“Stop!” Agatha shakes him off, feeling like a wild, rabid animal, mind running off its spool, making moaning, keening sounds as she weeps. “Just let me…”_

 _“Agatha, she’s dead,” says another voice, Hester, deathly quiet, deathly calm._ _  
_ _  
_ _“No.” She grits out, trying to swallow the sobs._

 _Hester must step forward, her foot brushes what’s left of Agatha’s skirt. “Agatha—”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“NO! NO, SOPHIE PLEASE!” Agatha dissolves into hysterical tears once again, and buries her face in Sophie’s chest, shoulders shaking. This can’t be happening. What will she do without her polar opposite? What will she do without the girl who feels like fresh air with every touch? How can she live?_

_“Come on.” Hester murmurs after a minute, trying to tug Agatha away, as if afraid Sophie’s carrying some contagious disease. “Don’t worry, she’s safe.”_

_“Just let me say goodbye,” and as she shakes, Agatha leans down and presses a messy little kiss to Sophie’s lips. And that should be it, and she should start to let go right then, but then, a second later, Sophie gasps back into life and she doesn’t have any choice but to hold on tighter and—)_

“It’s like you said,” Agatha says, sitting down heavily on top of her trunk. “She tricked us _all.”_ He makes to start forward again, but she holds up a hand to stop him. “But that’s not who she _really_ was. That’s what the Storian turned her into. I mean, that’s the danger of fairy tales. You saw _me,_ that night. You know who I am, I am _less_ than glamorous, but there was something about me that night that was—”

“Ethereal,” he says, and she blinks, surprised at the choice of word.

“Right,” Agatha agrees, tentatively. “The minute she succumbed to Evil, the minute she became a witch she gave me the power to be a princess, she made me powerful enough to go toe-to-toe with her. And that’s why it’s better that she’s not here anymore. It was too dangerous for everyone here.” She gestures around the room, walls cracked and windows boarded over to keep out the winter chill. “I mean, look what happened! The castles are in shambles, two of the faculty dead, along with the School Master and the wolves and fairies, so there’s no one to guard the Storian, now. And all anyone seems to care about is that the Ball had to be postponed!”

He sits down on the bed nearest to her, and says, “I know.”  
  
“Professor Sader and Professor Manley!” She cries, throwing her hands up. All of this, scribbling circles and squares and triangles in her mind over and over, it hurts _so much,_ she can’t seem to think straight. Agatha presses her hands to the sides of her head, squeezing it tight so maybe the thoughts will trickle out her ears and leave her mind blissfully silent. “Their teachers, their guardians, maybe even _friends_ — and no one seems to _care!”_

“Agatha, they’re not supposed to have connections to anyone except inside the school, and even then, Sader was very removed from everyone. And I can’t imagine that many of the Evil teachers are very warm and friendly to their students.” Tedros rubs some of the sheets between his fingers. “Of course no one seems to care.”

She breathes heavily, feeling on the verge of some great chasm that will swallow her whole and hide her forever from anyone who might wish to find her. “They could at least try to be more empathetic,” she murmurs.

He sighs, looking a little helpless, “Not everyone feels things as hard as you do, Agatha.”

She feels like crying all over again. Technically it’s her fault they postponed the Ball. She’d told Dovey to do it in the early morning after Sophie’s attack. She stumbled into her office, dressed only in her nightgown and whispered—

_(“You need to send everyone home.” Dovey looks up from whatever paperwork she might need to do with these unprecedented events._

_“I know, Agatha,” she sighs, looking exhausted._

_Agatha keeps her ground, chin up, trying to look daunting so she gets her point across. She can’t let anyone else die. “We need to postpone the Ball too.”_

_“We’re in discussion about it,” Dovey says, dismissively, looking back down as her pen continues scratching at the paper. “Emma thinks we should just do it in the Clearing, tomorrow night.”_

_“At the start of Winter?” Agatha snorts, feeling oddly empty despite the feeling that propelled her out of bed, the fear, the desperation to keep everyone in the castle safe. “Your princesses will freeze to death.”_

_Dovey looks back up and takes off her spectacles, looking worried. “You should go to bed,” she says, but there’s nothing authoritative about her tone. It’s mostly interest and worry._  
_  
_ She shuffles where she stands, and murmurs, “I can’t sleep.”

_“Agatha,” her teacher says, rubbing her temples to soothe whatever kind of headache she has coming on. “Nothing that happened tonight was your fault.”_

_“That’s not true,” Agatha argues back, taking another step into the room._

_“Oh really,” she raises an eyebrow from behind her hands and Agatha sits down heavily in the chair across from her._

_The tears come on quickly, once more, spilling over before she can even muster the feeling of stupidity that she feels whenever she cries, “If I’d just stayed in the tower—”_

_“Then we’d have a massacre and all-out war on our hands, not a rogue witch and some faculty openings,” Dovey speaks over her._

_Agatha’s head whips up, outrage bursting in her ribcage. “‘Faculty openings’?” She demands, breathless. “They were your_ _friends_ _.”_

_“Something you’ll learn as you get older, Agatha,” Dovey says, quietly, “is that people are not around forever, and if you want to stay sane it’s better to not dwell on what you’ve lost.”_

_Agatha slumps in her seat, “All I_ _am_ _is lost, Professor.”)_

“A.” She startles. Tedros is crouching in front of her, holding her limp hands. She pulls away on impulse. His eyes turn sad again. “Where did you just go?”

Agatha stands. “I was just here.” And it’s true. She was sure she was. Just staring into the middle distance. Or maybe _she_ was kneeling in front of _him,_ Excalibur at her side. Or maybe she was weeping into Sophie’s chest. Or maybe she was drained in a seat in front of her teacher, waiting for an answer that would fill her back up. Agatha shakes the thoughts away, like getting rid of cobwebs, like airing out an attic. “Are you hanging around for the end of term?” She asks, vaguely, going for friendly and coming out monotone and bored.

Tedros shrugs, and picks up her coat and hat. “I’m kind of just...hanging around for the end.”

“That was...kind of morbid,” Agatha comments before laughing a little. In all the time she’s known him, he’s been pretty happy-slappy, apart from when he talked about his father. She takes her coat and hat from his hands, grateful for the little bit of help he offers, even if it doesn’t make all that much of a difference. “Um, I’m leaving this afternoon. In like ten minutes, in fact.”

He nods, carefully and says, “I’ll walk you out then.”

“That’s sweet of you,” she comments and goes for the door.

He’s close behind her, flipping the sign on her door that notifies the nymphs that she’s ready for her trunk to be taken down. He follows Agatha down the stairs and into the entrance hall, and as they stop in the doorway of the castle, Tedros asks her, “Are we going to be alright, Agatha?”

“I think we’ll manage,” she replies, pulling on her coat and grabbing her hat. “It’s the only thing we can do.”

He’s quiet for a minute and then he turns, “Can I write to you?”

“What?” Agatha asks, fitting her hat onto her head. Her hair is much longer than it was the last time she wore it. Instead of lining up with her jaw, it now hangs to her shoulders, loose, a little wavy from regular and high quality washes.

“Can I write to you?” Tedros repeats, looking nervous. That’s how he’s looked since the Circus. Like he’s not sure she isn’t regretting taking his hand. “I can’t stand the idea that we’re going to part on these bad terms. I want to try and make it better. You can call me every rude name you know, swear you’ll never talk to me again, I don’t care, but let me write to you.”

She watches him, carefully, and weighs it up in her head. Ideally, she’d go home and never come back. Surely Dovey would understand if she dropped out, and now there’s no School Master to ensure she stays on, so who could stop her? Ideally, she’d never see Tedros of Camelot again, because he had seriously thought about killing her. Ideally, she’d go home and be with her mother until her dying breath. That’s not what’s going to happen though, and Agatha’s already made her peace with that.

She’s going to come back because Sophie was right. She’s in a story and she’ll know when it’s over. This is only the beginning, and she has to stick it out. That means conquering her fears, and forgiving him, though every part of her screams at her to stay away, screams that he’s dangerous and will only hurt her all over again. “...okay,” Agatha eventually says, quietly, nodding her head.

“Yeah?” Tedros perks up, and she knows she could never stay away. Not when he obviously needs her.

“Yeah. I really want to forgive you, so yes you can write to me,” Agatha smooths down the fabric of her coat, soft and worn against her calloused hands. “I’ll write back, but I think space is going to work best.”

“Okay.” She jolts when he takes her hand in his and squeezes it. She meets his eyes and there’s so much emotion in them that she almost immediately looks away. “I’ll miss you, Agatha.”

“I’ll miss you too,” Agatha murmurs, squeezing his hand in return, and then pulling away. “Take care.”

She doesn’t look back as she makes her way down into the flower fields, and she doesn’t look back as she gets sucked down into the Flowerground, but Agatha knows he’s watching her the whole way down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DUN DUN DUUUUUNNNN!!
> 
> Yeah I've posted a rant or two in my tags about this whole situation, so you should have expected this lol. Next chapter will cover a lot of the ground needed for reconciliation, I promise, so don't fret! Other things to look forward to: Winter Solstice; CALLIS!!; letters & much much more!
> 
> In other, more unfortunate news, there's going to be a gap in updates, as this is the end of part one. The real reason for this brief (I'm talking like three weeks at most) hiatus is that I literally only have chapter five written, the rest of the fic is in my head, scribbled on reciepts from work, and patched together in my notes app. I'm gonna spend as much free time as I can cobbling all together so I can continue delivering you a coherent fic, and I'm genuinely sorry that I have to pause this long. I also got into a musical (Squee!!) in town, so a bunch of my free nights are being taken up with rehearsals and stuff, so, once again, content will be slow.
> 
> As always, I appreaciate all of you so damn much (and I love your lovely long comments, I'm sorry it takes me so long to write back, I have (officially diagnosed now, lmao) adhd and it takes my brain a while to formulate responses lmao) and your unending support is heart melting, seriously.
> 
> hmu on Tumblr (@nose-coffee) if you have any questions or queries on this fic bc I'd love to talk about it, and if you got this far through this AND I'm officially your biggest fan. :)))


	5. i'll fill pages with scribbled ink

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Dear Agatha of Bloodbrook,_
> 
> _I am afraid to report that our letters are indeed read ahead of being sent and received. Your offer of a code was found quite amusing by the advisor who reads my letters, so I suggest we do it just to spite him. We can discuss it further back at school._
> 
> _Before I say goodbye, I must also say that I miss you a lot. I hadn’t realised quite how lonely I was here until I was spending every day with you, and now I miss you incredibly._
> 
> _Yours Faithfully,_
> 
> _Tedros of Camelot_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from "Historians" by Lucy Dacus (if this fic was a TV show that would be the title theme)
> 
> So, I am sorry for the big gap. Lots of stuff going on in my life, won't bore you with it all, but now we're back babey!!
> 
> TW for some bloody stuff in the middle of the chapter (realised a little bit ago that maybe adding a trigger warning at the start of the chapter would be a good idea, since not everyone is as cool with on-screen violence/injury as I am, and for that I am sorry)

To be fair, she’s quite a sight when Callis finally sees her again.

She’s bruised and scratched, her eyes sleep-hollow and skin far more pale than she’s used to. She arrives back at the house in Bloodbrook in the evening on a Wednesday afternoon, a week and a half earlier than expected, heralded by a letter from the Dean, explaining that an incident has rendered the castles unsafe for student residence and renovations will take place over the Solstice break. Callis can obviously tell that that’s bullshit.

Agatha’s in her arms before she even reaches the garden path, Callis having sat on the doorstep, holding the letter since it arrived. And she can obviously tell it’s bad because Agatha just starts crying. Agatha’s not particularly good at hiding when she’s upset, especially around her mother.

“Oh, dearest, what happened?” she murmurs as they go to their knees, holding tight.

Agatha just sobs, unable to form words, unable to communicate anything besides the horror and distress she feels, even now, a week and a half later, sitting dormant in her stomach.

Callis brings her inside after a moment, Agatha’s trunk following close behind (Callis knows some handy magic sometimes), and she sits her down on the edge of the tub in the kitchen. “I’m going to make some tea, and then I’m going to pour you a bath. You look exhausted.”

Agatha just sits there. She just sits there as Callis goes out and winches water from the well for the bath as quickly as she possibly can, and she just sits there as she puts a mug of tea in her cold hands, and she just sits down in the water when its hot, staring into the middle distance like she’s not really there as Callis washes her back.

“You need to talk to me,” she murmurs, eventually, washing suds from Agatha’s hair. It’s longer than Callis thinks she’s ever seen it. Brushing past her shoulders, and wavy, her hair is now long enough to be braided away from her face, pulled back into a bun or chignon. All throughout her childhood and early adolescence she’d required it to be cut short at her jaw, a black helmet for the nasty world she was trying to make her way in. At a school for Princesses, her helmet had to be different, a style that would blend in, inconspicuous. There’s motive and method behind what her past self may call madness. Agatha is far too clever for her own good.

“I can’t talk about any of it,” Agatha whispers, suddenly, and her mother jolts, flung from her thoughts. “It hurts too much. Or it doesn’t make any sense. Or it feels like a dream. A bad one.”

“Tell me,” Callis murmurs, quietly, taking hold of Agatha’s arm and squeezing, reassuringly.

“I can’t,” Agatha protests, the panic making her shake, the obvious horror too, rising into her throat, choking her. “It’s too much.”

“Not all of it. I don’t need to hear all of it,” her mother soothes, running her fingers through Agatha’s hair. “I just want to hear something.  _ Anything. _ You never have to tell me, but I’ll always listen.”

Agatha turns, slowly, as the shakes subside, eyes still fixed on the crack in the plaster above the stove. “I’m number two. In the ranks. Two out of one hundred and twenty.”

“Really,” Callis prompts, encouragingly. Agatha nods, obviously trying to summon something else inoffensive to the forefront of her mind.

“Yeah,” she says, and continues, “And I have a room all to myself. No one wanted to room with me, so I made it all my own. It’s nice, not having to share with strangers.”

“That  _ is  _ nice, dearest.”

“I got Class Captain.”

Callis stops. “Did you.”   
  
“It was a tie, technically. But he passed out from blood loss, so I got it by default. I don’t feel like I deserve it. I was only hiding. Tedros—” And suddenly she stiffens, cutting off. Callis stares. So it’s the boy, then. What had he done?

Agatha bends forward, in on herself, arms wrapping around her middle as if she’s squeezing out the sob that suddenly sounds from her throat. Her face goes pink and the tears begin anew, the gulping, grating sobs echoing off the tub. The neighbours will think Callis is torturing her.

“Oh, my dearest, my girl,  _ please _ tell me,” she whispers, rubbing Agatha’s back in an attempt to soothe her. “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.”

“He,” Agatha begins, and the sobs wrack her once more. Callis’ mind is racing. The son of King Arthur. He’d been a nasty git, the one time she’d ever met him, and he only seemed to care about getting things he wanted. Perhaps his son was the same. Perhaps he didn’t know how to take no for an answer. Perhaps—

“She tricked him,” she chokes out, her hands coming to rest on the sides of the tub, holding it tightly until her knuckles go white. “She made him think I was Evil, and he thought I’d betrayed him. And he—”

Callis can draw her own conclusions; Agatha hits a fist on her chest, just over where her heart is, forcing back the sobs. She knows just what he’d done, now. “He tried to kill you,” she deduces, simply.

“He  _ wanted  _ to kill me. He might have, i-i-if we weren’t friends, if he hadn’t actually known me, if he trusted her. But he stopped himself. He stopped, he didn’t do it. He didn’t try—” Agatha groans, wiping her face of tears, but only managing to smear them.

“Who tricked him?” She presses, needing as much information as possible if she’s going to help.

“Sophie.” Callis stills. When she’d first read the name in Agatha’s letter, she was sure she’d been wrong,  _ no way _ was that Vanessa’s girl. But then she’d gone on to say she was a beautiful blonde Reader in Evil who believed she didn’t belong, and wanted to switch with Agatha into Good.   
  
“The blonde Reader girl?” She tries not to let her voice shake. Of course she knew that girl was bound for this world, the same as Agatha, she just never really considered that they’d meet so soon, that they’d have such an effect on each other.

“Yes, yes,” Agatha babbles, eyes unseeing, hands still frantically hugging herself. “She was a witch — she tricked him, but then she saved me.”

“From Tedros?”

“No, from the School Master.” Another hurdle, another unknown in this chaotic story. “He threw the Storian at me, and she jumped in front of me, to save me.”

Callis knows how pale she must be, listening to this, taking it in. _ “What?” _   


“He’s dead now,” Agatha states, voice suddenly void of panic, hands going limp, tears abating along with the sobs. “So it doesn’t matter.”

“The School Master is  _ dead?”  _ Her mother repeats, unbelieving. That tyrant, the Evil man who reigned for two hundred years, _dead?_ Impossible.

“Yeah. He was Evil the whole time. Who could have guessed it?” She laughs a little, but it doesn’t sound humorous. It sounds a bit hysterical, honestly. “His brother possessed Professor Sader’s body and he killed the School Master.”

Callis is a little stuck on that fact, unfortunately. Given she was worried he’d find her the minute she came back to the Endless Woods, and has been stressing about it for the last sixteen years, the fact that he’s very suddenly _dead_ with no clue she’d ever come back is a very big deal. “Oh,  _ shit.” _

“Mom?” Agatha questions, curiously.

“He can’t find me,” she says, and covers her mouth as she laughs. It’s too good to be true. All these years keeping her head down, living a simple life, keeping to herself and now it’s all paid off.

“What?”

She takes Agatha’s hands carefully, eyes smiling, “Did I ever tell you why I left my post at the School for Evil?”   


“No.”   


“The School Master wanted to court me,” she admits, the first time she’s ever said the words out loud, and they still sound ridiculous to her ears. “Wanted me to be his bride.”

“Gross. That’s what he wanted from Sophie too,” Agatha responds, and there’s colour in her cheeks now, warmth in her eyes, a twitch to the corner of her mouth that usually precedes a smile. “He should’ve gotten better material, maybe he would have succeeded in his stupid Evil plan.”   
  
“He’s gone,” Callis whispers, gleefully, reinforcing the fact in her mind. He’s terrorised her waking moments for years, haunted her dreams, and now he is no more. “He’s  _ dead.” _

Agatha startles her as she reaches out and brushes hair out of her face, watching her carefully. “Mom, are you okay?” She asks.

“I’m great,” Callis informs her, holding Agatha’s wet palm to her cheek, so glad to have her daughter home, so glad of the news she brought, so glad for a lot of things. “And look at  _ you. _ You look and sound better. Talking things out helps, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, I suppose it does,” Agatha agrees, hesitantly, and pulls away, softly, leaning back in the tub. “I think I’m just glad to be home. I don’t think I could live there full time.”

“Well,” Callis says, getting to her feet and offering Agatha a towel, smile still in place, “you can’t, right now because they’re trying to fix everything.”

Agatha rolls her eyes and stands, taking the towel. “Mom, come  _ on.” _ She sounds annoyed, but there’s a small smile on her face, soft amusement breaking any act in half.

“Do you want me to kill him for you, by the way?” She asks her as Agatha wraps her towel around her body. She finger combs a part of her hair, still a little shocked at the length. “I know he’s the future king and all, but he tried to hurt my daughter so I’m willing to make an exception.”   
  
“No, mom,” Agatha sighs, shaking her off. “I don’t want you to do that. He made a  _ mistake. _ Barely a mistake, really, because he didn’t even act on it.”

Callis’s mouth falls into a hard, thin line and she says, very seriously, “He made a mistake that could have cost you your _ life.” _   


“Yes. But he knows that. And all he wants to do is make it up to me.” She looks sad. Callis can tell he’s caused her a lot of heartache, and she thinks back to Agatha’s first letter, how she raved about this boy who wanted nothing more than her to be safe. How he taught her how to defend herself. And now he’s gone against himself entirely, becoming the one who wanted to hurt her. Poetic irony. “He’s already apologised a  _ million times, _ and he’s going to write over the break.”   


Callis crosses her arms, unimpressed despite Agatha’s assurances that it’s going to get better. Sure, people die all the time here, and most people she knows are doomed to die by an Ever’s hand, but Agatha probably thought she’d be spared, now that she was given access to that exclusive club. It’s what comes with remembering your background, your heritage. No one will forget, especially not Evers. They’re not the type to disregard heritage. “I don’t suppose I can ban you from ever speaking to him again, can I,” she says, resigned.

“No,” Agatha agrees, making a face. “He was supposed to be my partner for the Ball, but we had to postpone until the end of next Semester, which I think will mean a bunch of challenges next semester will be based on our performance as a pair, so I can’t exactly avoid him.”   


She hums, squeezing Agatha’s shoulders on her way past. “Well, if you ever bring him home, I’ll make his life very difficult.”   


“Noted,” Agatha snorts, and heads to the hallway that leads to their rooms. “Okay, I’m going to dry off and then I’m probably going to sleep for a few years.”

“Understandable,” Callis nods, and then a question enters her mind. “Hey.”

“Hm?” Agatha pops back around the corner, and Callis can’t help but grin, glad that she’s back to herself.

“Do you want to do anything with your hair?” Callis gestures, vaguely. “Tomorrow, I mean. I know you’re really tired.”

“Yeah, maybe,” she replies, a little absently, flicking a wet strand of hair. “Maybe a trim.”

She cocks her head, “Part of your uniform?”

“My own personal one, yeah,” Agatha agrees. “Rest assured though; when graduation comes around and I’m hacking it off. I think I just want to see how long I can grow it.”

“Alright then,” Callis nods and waves her off. “I love you, dearest.”

“Love you too, mom.” The door closes and Callis feels vaguely sick for a moment. Sophie back in her life, for the first time since birth. The School Master is dead. Tedros is an impulsive, violent boy, who was tricked by a witch.

A witch. Sophie, an actual, fully realised  _ witch.  _ That doesn’t just happen to random students. The only way that really happens is because you’re in a story. A story where someone must die at the end.

Callis has a feeling that this is just the beginning.

* * *

_ Dear Agatha of Bloodbrook, _

_ As suspected, the servants are pretty much apathetic about my sudden arrival home. The Solstice celebrations in Camelot used to be very grand affairs, but I’m afraid I really don’t know how to organise that kind of thing, and I really don’t want to leave it up to my advisors and courtiers, so we’re having another bleak winter. _

_ I hope you got home okay. I know it’s not exactly  _ _ easy _ _ to hurt yourself on the Flowerground, but it’s always good to check. I wonder, because I never asked, how good is Bloodbrook’s library? I know I waxed poetic about Camelot’s but you only rolled your eyes and muttered in return, so I couldn’t really gage an answer. In any case, I’ve sent along a well loved book from my childhood. The tale is very old, even older than that of  _ “The Three Ravens”, _ so I hope it will be sufficiently nerve wracking for you. _

_ In any case, I also hope you are well, and that your mother is well. I hope you’ve slept better now that you’re home — I know I have. Sleeping well at school is a bit strange for me, as I’m not used to sharing and the mattresses are of lower calibre than I’m used to. I’d like to hear your thoughts on the school's bedding, as well as your thoughts on the book. I very much enjoyed our conversations on Adelina’s poetry, and would be delighted should such future discussions occur. _

_ With hope, _

_ Prince Tedros of Camelot. _

* * *

“What’s that?”

Agatha jolts. She’s been sitting on the back porch, reading the book Tedros sent her for a good few hours now. It’s a long one too, chronicling many dark and foreboding adventures. Callis looks down at her, holding out a buttered chunk of bread. Agatha takes it gratefully as her mother heaves herself down onto the step above her.

“A book,” she replies, taking a bite of the bread and continuing through it, “Tedros sent it to me.”

Callis raises an unimpressed eyebrow and inspects the book from afar as she comments, dryly, “Oh, did he.”

Agatha sighs, “I know you don’t have a very high opinion of him—”

“—well, he did try to kill you, so I was never going to be  _ wild _ about the boy—”

“—he did  _ not _ try to kill me  _ and  _ he’s really trying to make things better.” She watches her mother gaze at the pages interestedly. “Have you ever read it before? It’s called  _ Fearnot.” _

Callis takes the book and looks it over, brows narrowing. “This is a very old book.”

“I know.” Another bite of bread, then a guffaw as she remembers a portion of his letter, “He asked me what our library’s like.”

_ “Our _ library?” Her mother responds, amused.

“I think he meant the town’s, though you never know.” She finishes her bread and rests her elbows on her knees, holding her cheeks in her hands and looking out to the creek behind their house. “He was complaining about the school beds in comparison to his own, in the letter, so I’m not sure he’s the most educated when it comes to the class divide. But, you know, he has his very own library, in the castle. It’s filled with books like that.” Callis wiggles her eyebrows in response, when Agatha looks back at her. “Can you imagine? Having a countless amount of books and keeping them all to yourself? No one else ever even gets to  _ touch  _ them. I think if I had a library that was all my own, I’d open it to the public, share them with everyone.”

“What if someone stole them?” Her mother responds, sounding suitably amused by the notion. “I think that’s probably what’s keeping them from opening it to the public.”   


“Well, I’d have them copied, obviously,” Agatha says, dreaming it up in her head, thinking of how well it would go down. She should probably suggest it to him. Tedros is liable to try it right now, given he’s trying to get back on her good side. “Keep the originals safe, but let other people read those stories, and learn from them, for goodness sake. I mean everyone likes reading, so I can only assume that would make him very popular with his people.”

“No one  _ here _ likes reading,” Callis reminds her, handing back the book and taking a bite of her own piece of buttered bread.

“That’s not true; we like reading, just not the stories that get churned out by the Storian every so often. I mean, they’re all stories that stomp Nevers into the mud,” Agatha replies, tapping the book on her knee as she turns, resting her back against the railing. “I think if we had a library it would be filled with books like this one, but then also essays and manifestos, papers written about social equality and the imbalance of victories between Evers and Nevers in the last two hundred years. I’m sure they exist, somewhere, but people are so against picking up books that turn them into villains despite their intentions, that they won’t go looking for reading material at all. If we had a library people wouldn’t be so against reading.”

“Is that what you’re going to do, once you graduate?” Her mother asks with a smile. “Are you going to build us a library?”

“Oh, maybe,” she agrees, grinning despite herself. It’s a good idea, a fun idea. Maybe not her simple life she’d hoped for, before the School for Good intervened, but a good life. If she can help make up for the bad rep Never’s have gotten over the last two hundred years, maybe she won’t feel so useless. Not the end of the road to end up a princess or a shrub, but something to work for, an advocate, an ally, someone who makes a difference. “I’ll build libraries in every Never town, and I’ll fill them with dark stories like this and manifestos and essays. You just wait.”   


Callis hums, playing with loose strands of hair from Agatha’s updo, and says, “Read me something.”

“Um, let me see… _ ‘Is this where I will learn how to shudder?’ asked the boy, removing his boots. His companion nodded, far too amused to be an honest man. He, like the boy, seemed to have become quite intent on finding something, some phenomenon that was truly frightening. ‘Yes,’ replied the dishonest man, ‘Simply go beneath the water, and fear will swim up to greet you.’ _

_ So, the boy removed his coat as well, and dove into the lake, swimming as far down as he dared to go, waiting for whatever his companion had deemed frightening. But all he saw before him was a dark, dark lake, filled with weeds and dirt, soft and squelching beneath his bare feet. It was cold beneath the water, and now the boy wished for bed, though he was not frightened, he was put out. Was he to wait below the water until he was drowned? Was this what the dishonest man had meant for him? Perhaps he was already away with the boy’s coat and boots and belongings? Perhaps he’d meant to mislead him this whole while? _

_ From the darkness comes a hand, pale and freckled, beckoning the boy into the darkness. His doubts relinquished, the boy wades slowly through the deep green of the lake towards the hand. Attached to the hand is a similarly pale and freckled arm, and a beautifully dressed torso, and a head of dark brown hair, that curls and twists with the water, her dark eyes and plump smile beckoning him further, promising riches and warmth and beer. The boy continues forward, and two more maidens join the first, one dark and the other fair, both beckoning with outstretched hands, come, come into the deep, come and meet our master.” _

* * *

_ Dear Prince Tedros of Camelot, _

_ (I hope I don’t have to address you this way every letter. Do they read your mail? Perhaps we should come up with a code, in person, that is, to use in our letters if we want to keep something private.) _

_ The book is very good. Exactly my taste, so I applaud your deductive skills. My mother was also impressed at your intuition, and enjoyed an excerpt thoroughly (the scene beneath the lake with the monster’s three fair daughters). In return, I’ve sent you one of her beloved books, though you must return it quickly, because she might well boil me alive if she finds I’ve lent it to you. You see, my mother does not have the greatest opinion of you. I’m afraid that I relayed part of what happened at the Circus to her, and now she is intent on never seeing your face for herself, or she might well come to violence. Never mothers are overprotective in this way, but I don’t think she’d ever actually do it. (Let’s not count on it, though.) _

_ The book is a classic in Never communities as it does not celebrate a happy ending for its protagonist, and so you may have a taste of our preferred literature. In response to your question about our library, I’m sorry to inform you that we do not have one. In the last two hundred years Never’s have suffered great losses, and are therefore not fond of so-called ‘classic literature’. I hope that once I’ve graduated, I can make it my life's work to reinstate literature into Never communities. I think they deserve that. _

_ I must say I’m very jealous of your library. I wonder have you ever considered opening it to the public? If not, perhaps take it into account when you next wonder if there’s anything you can do to assure the people you want what’s best for them. _

_ My mother came into a bit of money in my absence, given she no longer had another mouth to feed, so a few things in our home have been upgraded, such as my bedframe and mattress. It is much bigger than it used to be, akin to my bed at school, so I honestly have no idea which is better. I know I have slept better since arriving back home, though I don’t know whether it’s because of the lack of stress, a familiar area, or because of the bed itself. Perhaps a study should be done on the subject. _

_ Please write back once you’ve finished  _ “The Soldier and Death”  _ as I would love to hear your thoughts on it. I’ve included a separate paper on  _ “Fearnot”  _ but have made it separate to this letter, as I wish not to weigh you down with too much writing at one time. _

_ Regards, _

_ Agatha of Bloodbrook _

* * *

On her fifth day back in Bloodbrook, a man who works at the mill gets his arm stuck in a piece of machinery and his friends drag him all the way down the muddy lane to Agatha’s house. Agatha, Hester, and Callis’ bread-making antics are abruptly interrupted by the sudden appearance of a profusely bleeding unconscious person on the doorstep, but that doesn’t exactly deter them. On the contrary, Callis quickly gets him up on the kitchen table while his friends hold him down, and she sends Agatha to grab her medicine bag. Once sedated, she informs the two men who brought him in that the arm will have to be amputated. Then she sends Agatha and Hester to get as much water as they can carry, so they run.

“Feels like the good old days, huh?” Hester puffs behind her as Agatha sprints, her yoke aching on her shoulders. Surprisingly, she’s a bit fitter than Hester, carrying her own yoke, and struggling to keep up as they make their way to the town center to fetch water from the well.

“In a way,” Agatha agrees. They’ve been present for more than a few gruesome emergency surgeries in their time, just by virtue of Agatha’s mother being one of the only healers in the village, much less the only one on the poorer end of town. It was just an accepted fact that if her friends came around to play at her house, they’d be expected to help with whatever medical malady her mother may be treating that day. Not that any of her friends ever really had a problem with that -- Never children are not faint of heart, and the presence of blood and puss and bone do not deter their curiosity -- but it was always prefaced with Anadil’s mother and Dot’s father (by letter, of course, since he’s an incredibly busy man and cannot make the whole trip to Bloodbrook every time Dot wishes to visit.)

In the end, it’s a twenty minute round trip to the well and back, and the four buckets they bring back are quickly put to use, as are their hands. An hour later, the man’s arm has been amputated and stitched back up, bandaged, and he’s been set down on Callis’ bed to rest up before having to leave the next day. Agatha and Hester offer his friends some of their fresh bread in return for their help in the man’s treatment and they have dinner on the porch, lanterns lighting the area.

“You all do very good work,” one of the man says, after taking a bite of bread. His sleeves are rolled up, and Agatha can see where blood has seeped all the way through the off-white material. “But sometimes I wish we had a clinic or hospital. Somewhere ready from the second we arrive to help us.”

“I get that,” Agatha agrees, quietly. She understands completely what he means. You’d think the Wolf King of Bloodbrook might care about the state his subjects are in, but he very rarely lends his ear to those who live in the lower sectors of his kingdom. Anadil’s mother has spoken on some peasant’s behalf, occasionally, but very rarely do their requests come to fruition. Agatha feels stony in her resolution to be part of the change. Perhaps once she’s done, her town will have a library and a hospital and water pumps in every yard. Perhaps, when she’s done, there’ll be little to no class divide, and the Wolf King will lend his ear to any who wish to speak.

For now, though, all she can do is help those who come to her door. Hester meets her eye across the porch, a cup of jasmine tea pressed to her lips. She looks away after a moment, gripping a blanket tight around her shoulders.

* * *

_ Dear Agatha, _

_ I hope you don’t mind me contacting you — I got your address off Tedros when I concocted this plan, but then I realised the other night that getting a strange, sudden package from Jaunt Jolie was probably going to startle you a bit, so I sent this ahead with great haste. I noticed last semester that you only ever wore that one blue dress, before I fixed the sleeves on your white one, and I thought something you might like was if I got you a whole bunch of new ones, all in different colours, to extend your wardrobe. I hope you don’t mind. _

_ I gave your measurements to my mother and told her my friend’s dresses got ruined during the disaster at the Circus and the damage to the castle, and so she’s kindly swooped in and made three new dresses with designs I approved for you, free of charge. _

_ (She doesn’t know it was you specifically, she just knows my friend from school doesn’t come from a very high up family and was very “compassionate and willing to lend a helping hand if it means future investments from this friend of yours, Trixy”. You see what I mean? Completely selfish and  _ _ utterly _ _ neurotic.) _

_ In any case, that package should show up in the next few days, and please send along a letter when you get them, because I’d love to know what you think. The designs were based on that conversation we had after the Trial about what you usually wear at home, so I think they’ll be to your taste, and still acceptable in Bloodbrook. _

_ Your friend, _

_ Beatrix of Jaunt Jolie _

* * *

There are three dresses in the package that turns up the next day. The first is dark green with long sleeves, able to be unbuttoned and rolled up, tapering in at the waist with buttons down the front. The second is a deep red with cream lace on the elbow-length sleeves and neckline — this one has pockets and contrasts nicely with her clumps. The last one is black velvet with a white collar peeking up from the high neckline, buttoned at the front and short sleeves with white embellishments to complete it. Agatha nearly cries at the sight of them.

“Who did you say this friend was?” Callis asks her, taking the red one into her hands, and inspecting it with wonder. They’re much nicer than the three she’d gotten before the first semester, all made of better material and with more precise stitching. She supposes she had much more time to make these, and since she hadn’t known she was making them for that Never-raised girl who stormed into her shop before school started up, of course she was going to treat the product a bit better.

She could  _ kiss  _ Beatrix for this. “A very influential one, apparently.”

* * *

_ Dear Beatrix, _

_ Thank you so much for the dresses. I don’t know how I will ever begin to repay you. They all fit perfectly and they look fantastic — exactly how I imagined them! Tell your mother thank you, and I will absolutely be bringing them with me when I return to school next semester. _

_ I hope your Solstice celebrations go well, I’ll see you at school. _

_ Your friend, _

_ Agatha _

* * *

_ Dear Tedros, _

_ How have you been? Was the Solstice alright for you, this year? I know you said it had been hard to celebrate without your parents, and that your servants were rather uninterested in celebrating with you, so I apologise once again for recanting my invitation, but I’m sure you still understand why I did it. _

_ Mine was good. My mother and I went to Anadil’s house, as we always do, as her house is quite large in comparison to mine and her kitchen is better. Hort and Hester came with us, and we lit our candles right before dinner. The watermelon was great this year, but the pomegranates were a little sour. It was still good. Everyone still hates that I always read from Adelina’s poetry book, but I did it anyway, because I love her poetry too much to read anything else. Sleeping in the same room as Hester and Anadil gave me a taste of what you meant about sharing at school. It does always unnerve me, knowing there’s someone else in the room with me. _

_ I’ve sent along some of our watermelon seeds for you to use as you wish. We always exchange them with our neighbours, but I thought this year you could have some of mine, so that you know I don’t wish you ill. What poetry or story did you read for your celebration? What fruits did you eat? Did you stay up until midnight? I never can, I always get too tired. _

_ Your friend, _

_ Agatha _

_ P.S — did Beatrix tell you why she needed my address? _

* * *

Agatha goes digging through her trunk one night, in pursuit of a missing pair of stockings. She pulls out the loose shirt Tedros lent her for their self defence lessons, and she ends up holding it to her chest that night, crying very softly. She doesn’t want mementos to something she’s afraid she’s lost. She’s already so tired of crying over him.

Her mother comes into the room, soon after, and joins her on the bed, holding Agatha in her arms as she weeps, stroking her hair, kissing the crown of her head and whispering, “Oh my girl, my darling girl.”

“I’m fine,” Agatha insists, once, pulling away, her fingers twisted in the soft material of the shirt. “I just—”

“He  _ hurt you,”  _ Callis interrupts, covering Agatha’s hands with her own and smoothing the tension from her knuckles. “That is not the kind of wound that just fades with time. It’s the kind you have to nurse back into wellness. I know you want to forgive him, I know all that goodness in your soul is crying out for the bad blood to go, and I know it hurts to be apart from someone you care for deeply, especially after they’ve hurt you, but reconciliation does not come easy, my dear. It  _ cannot. _ It takes time, it takes courage, and it takes great strength.”

Agatha gazes at her mother, illuminated by sputtering candlelight and confesses, “I don’t know if I’m that strong.”   
  
“You are,” Callis insists, squeezing her daughter’s hands.

She shakes her head, wildly, unable to believe such a thing when it feels as though her very soul is about to cleave in half just by holding a memento of their friendship in her hands. “I don’t—“   
  
“Agatha, you are  _ so strong.  _ I’ve seen it. I’ve seen how strong you are. You just can’t go relying on it as much as you do, or you’ll run out of energy, of strength, of forgiveness.” She kisses Agatha’s forehead and bundles her into her arms again, stroking her hair from her eyes. “I should have seen it earlier, your goodness, though I suppose I did when you were born, but it was so much easier to dismiss then. But I  _ did _ see it, and I  _ still do, _ how brightly it shines in you, how you work so hard to put others before yourself. Your heart is so big, too big even though it must be full to bursting by now.”

Agatha shudders with tears, holding the balled up shirt to her chest, breathing as slowly as she can as Callis continues. “My heart grows just from watching you seek out problems you want to fix, you know? I love you so much. And I’d love you just the same if you were Evil, like me, but it’s enchanting to see you becoming the hero I know you can be.”

“Mom,” she whispers, resting her temple against Callis’ shoulder.   
  
“Just don’t let him take advantage of your goodness,” her mother breathes, continuing to slowly stroke her hair, as if lulling her asleep. It’s working. Agatha wonders if she’s bewitching her, and decides she doesn’t mind too much, since her tears are slowing to a stop and the lump in her throat is shrinking. “Forgiveness may be one of your Good rules, but I think you can inflict a little hurt on behalf of your Never upbringing.”

Agatha laughs weakly, cutting herself off with a yawn. Sleep comes quickly after that, but she’s still somewhat awake when she hears her mother whisper,

“It will get better. I swear it will.”

* * *

_ Dear Agatha, _

_ Your watermelon seeds were received with delight, I assure you. I’ve never exchanged Solstice gifts with friends before, so it was a very nice surprise. I’ve included some of my apple seeds in return. They were harvested from the finest orchard in Avalon, so I hope they’ll suffice. _

_ The Solstice was quiet on my end. A small dinner that the cook helped me make, as I gave the staff the night off to be with their families. Apples and rice with chicken. I read some of  _ “The Soldier and Death”  _ after dinner. It is quite grim, I see why you and your mother like it so much. I’m afraid I sympathise too much with the Soldier. All he wants is for those he loves to be spared from the passage of time, wants to be spared the loss of them, and yet all he is doing is dooming them to a long existence. I think if I could have kept my father, I would have, but I don’t know that it would have done the kingdom any good. _

_ Your thoughts on  _ “Fearnot”  _ were also incredibly astute and eloquent, and I am eager to talk more about it once we’re back at school. I found one of your bookmarks still in it when it was returned the other day, with your letter, and I would quite like to know what flower it is that grows in winter and is so beautiful that you can so easily discard as a bookmark. _

_ I am afraid to report that our letters are indeed read ahead of being sent and received. Your offer of a code was found quite amusing by the advisor who reads my letters, so I suggest we do it just to spite him. We can discuss it further back at school. _

_ Before I say goodbye, I must also say that I miss you a lot. I hadn’t realised quite how lonely I was here until I was spending every day with you, and now I miss you incredibly. How Sophie ever made me think you could be fooling me I will never know. Please accept another of my endless apologies over the incident. I know it will never be enough, but all the same, I will never stop being sorry about it. _

_ Yours faithfully, _

_ Tedros. _

_ P.S — yes I did know, and she was so excited to hear that you liked them. She consulted me on the designs and I helped her hone them in, hope you don’t mind. _

* * *

Her birthday is a small affair — though, when isn’t it? Hester and Anadil come over, and Dot arrives only an hour later, and they eat the honeycake Callis has made, dancing by the creek after dark. They each light a candle for her and leave them out in lanterns out on the back porch when they all pile into Agatha’s bed for the night. The witches hold her hands and say a blessing for her for the next year of her life and Agatha repeats it in gratitude, blessing them in return for their love. She does not think of Tedros that day  _ (lies, _ all she does is think of how much she misses him), and she does not tell him about it (though she wishes she could have). They fall asleep quickly, energy crashing after drinking that mulled apple cider her mother had brewed. Snow falls outside her window. Agatha watches the five candles on the porch. She wonders if Tedros would have lit a candle for her. She wonders if she sent him a letter, with her birthday as a footnote, would he light one belatedly? She drifts off wondering, holding her friends hands as they sigh and snore in their sleep.

* * *

_ Dear Tedros, _

_ The flower is wolfsbane. It’s incredibly poisonous when ingested. We grow a small grove of it by my house, along with a bush of nerium oleander, another poisonous flower. My mother uses them for her medicines, as they have some healing properties when mixed with certain other ingredients. I hope you’ll have the good sense to discard those, and forgive me for my thoughtlessness in pressing those in your book, especially when you’d already told me it was well loved and from your childhood. I’ll be more careful in future. _

_ I’ve already started work on the apple seeds you sent. They’re placed in the coolest part of our kitchen for the next few weeks in a wet towel, under the advice of the closest farmer we could find. (Apparently this is integral in making sure they grow quickly and bear fruit quicker. My mom thinks we should just use magic to make it bear fruit, but the farmer got really pissed off at the suggestion, so she’s been grumbling about it for the last few days.) Then we’ll plant them and let them mature on the windowsill in our kitchen for now, until late summer when we should be able to plant them in the yard. My mother was grudgingly delighted by them, so rest assured they’ll be well taken care of in my absence. _

“The Soldier and Death”  _ used to upset me as a kid. It probably wasn’t the best book for a little girl to have read, but my mother thought it was the best way to explain death to me. It was written in the time before the Brothers guarded the Storian, so I’ve never been quite sure if it was true, because you know how even the Storian’s tales can be twisted, but my mother has never answered that particular question. It interests me, stories that aren’t written by the Storian, ones that don’t necessarily have to be true. _

_ Why would we plan to come up with a code to use in letters when discussing private matters where your advisors can read it? Wouldn’t it only spur them to find out the code as quickly as possible? Wouldn’t that be awfully cruel, Teddy? _

_ I miss you too. I miss a lot of things. I’ll see you next week, though. Don’t worry too much. I think without Sophie and the School Master stirring things up so much this coming semester is going to be a bit calmer. _

_ Your friend, _

_ Agatha _

* * *

For a moment, she is sitting in her bed, reading Adelina’s poems again, and between the blink of an eye, she’s on a cloud.

Agatha blinks around, and finds her wizard friend grinning at her, surprised but happily so. She throws herself into his arms, glad to see a familiar face. “Mordred! It’s so good to see you!”

“And you, my dear,” he replies, hugging her tightly. “I was worried I’d never see you again, given how long you’ve been away.”

Agatha pulls away, and bites her cheek a little, admitting, “Things have been a bit hectic, lately…”

He nods, obviously aware of the incident at the school. Makes sense; it wasn’t exactly a quiet affair, and with two-hundred and forty students sent home early after a disaster of this size, it’s not exactly likely that anyone could miss news of it. “I’ve heard little except that there was an... _ incident,” _ Mordred allows.

“‘Incident’ is certainly a word for it,” Agatha agrees, solemnly. “Only a  _ few _ people died.”

He looks startled at this admission. “Oh dear. Who?”

“Professor Manley. Professor Sader.” Agatha gulps down the lump in her throat and breathes carefully to soothe the racing of her heart as she adds, “The School Master.” How could she have known he’d haunt her? Him and Sophie and Tedros. Funny how when you stop seeing people they become as unreal as ghosts.

Mordred’s eyes bulge almost comically.  _ “Really?” _

“Really,” she repeats, evenly. “And Evil the whole time. Who could’ve guessed?”

Mordred settles back against his cloud, looking shocked, obviously trying to rationalise the news in his head. He shakes it away after a moment and inquires, “And what of the prince?”

Agatha sighs, crossing her arms over her chest, “Ah, what of the prince, indeed?”

“Discarded you, has he?” Mordred seems troubled by the concept. Agatha didn’t know he cared that much, given she’d only mentioned the friendship once and this was their third ever meeting. “Princes are wont to do that, I suppose, though I confess I expected better of him, given how you spoke of him, in the past.”

“Not discarded. No, he still wants me around.” She pauses, looking up at the patchwork sky, the five pointed stars shining down brightly on them. “It’s  _ me  _ that’s doubting our friendship.”

He hums, considering the statement. Agatha wonders if she’s causing him undue stress. “Do you want a hot chocolate while you tell me?” Mordred offers, holding his pointed hat to her.

Agatha takes the hat from his hand and smiles, bewildered, “Yes, is that even a question?” The hat burps a mug into her hand, piled high with whipped cream and sprinkles, and Agatha scratches its felt, appreciatively. “Thanks buddy.”

“Alright,” the old wizard leans back on the cloud, and says, “tell me. Does this have anything to do with the incident at the school?”

“Yes,” Agatha responds, evenly, and takes a deep breath. She leaves out no detail, the way she had for her mother. She supposes she doesn’t think Mordred will coddle her or become as irrational as her Never mother, and that’s why she tells him the whole story — including the Storian beginning her and Sophie’s tale, breaking her nose on the roof, the Trial, and then the incident at the Circus. Mordred listens carefully, letting her talk it through, never stopping her or asking questions.

“It seems you feel a lot of guilt over what happened between you and Sophie and Tedros,” he finally comments, when Agatha’s stopped for breath, having finally finished her story.

She frowns, clutching the fluffy cloud hard with her long fingers. “Guilt…yes,  _ sure, guilt, _ but it also hurts a lot. And I don’t know if it’s  _ right  _ for me to feel bad when other people got hurt worse. The teachers were petrified, and a few of them died. Everyone’s at least a  _ little  _ traumatised.”

“Someone you cared for sacrificed her life for you and died in your arms,” Mordred intones, gently. “I think you get to be  _ as _ traumatised if not  _ more _ than everyone else.”

Agatha frowns deeper, releasing the cloud and feeling it sigh in relief. “Is that so.”

“Yes.”

She sits there for a long time, every doubt and worry that’s crossed her mind since the incident rushing through her thoughts once again as she tries to make sense of his statement. “I still don’t really know why she did it,” she tells him, quietly. “I was  _ sure  _ she hated me. I don’t know why she changed her mind.” 

The wizard sighs, “The greatest villains make you doubt, my dear.”

Agatha looks up. “So everyone keeps telling me. She’s not a villain, though. And we’re not heroes. We’re children, all of us, and it’s unfair to label us as anything but that. I mean, there’s a reason that they’re waiting until Tedros is eighteen to crown him king, and there’s a reason that they only accept first years when they’re fifteen, and not younger. That reason is that we’re not old enough beforehand to be making big decisions like  _ am I going to kill every person in this school? _ Sophie overestimated herself. She did some horrible things that night, but in the end she realised that wasn’t her. Not  _ really.  _ Maybe when she’s older she’ll choose to do it again, but you can bet right now she regrets her actions.”

“How do you know that?” He asks, not outraged, but intrigued. She’s noticed that about him. He’s almost never conflicted, he’s so understanding, so balanced, that even the most shocking proclamations only incite curiosity. When she’d told Dovey she felt more neutral than Good because of her heritage and upbringing, she’d truly believed that. She thinks Mordred might be able to sympathise.

“Because why else would she have sacrificed her life for mine? Can you think of any other villain to put their nemesis before themselves? I can’t.” Merlin just watches her. He must sense she has more to say before she even knows she does. “Sophie isn’t the great witch everyone seems to think she is, and  _ I’m  _ not the mighty princess they want me to be. I never will be, actually. They have a set idea of what princesses should be, and even if I graduated as a leader, and spurned the plans I already have laid out to instead marry and become a real princess, they wouldn’t accept me, because I’m not what they expect a princess to be. What she did — what  _ we  _ did — essentially turned the formula of every triumphant tale in the woods on its head and asked  _ why is this what we expect and accept?” _

Agatha breathes in sharply, trying to collect her thoughts as tears spring to her eyes once again. She doesn’t think she’s cried this often in her entire life. She doesn’t like crying, and as of so far had not much to cry about. Now it seems, because of this damned school, all she has is things to cry about.

“I miss her. And I don’t know  _ why.” _ Mordred’s hat curls up in her lap, and she pets it for a sense of comfort as she continues, choking on the words. “Even at her most confusing she made sense to me. There is something between us that I cannot name but I cannot dismiss.”

“You said the only thing that could send her home was True Love’s Kiss,” her companion murmurs, looking out at the patchwork sky. “You said it tried to take you too.”

“But  _ how _ can I love her?” Agatha demands, helplessly. “I  _ barely knew her, _ and for the longest time I wasn’t even sure that I  _ liked  _ her. It’s nonsensical.”

“Life is not meant to make sense to those living it, only to those who look back on it. Especially when it comes to stories.” Mordred turns to face her, his face grim. “We can try to outwit our narrator, but in the end, every story comes full circle, a moral glaring us right in the face, and we cannot escape it.”

Agatha hiccups, hands reaching up to cover her face. “I’m  _ so scared.”  _ It’s true. Nothing scares her more than knowing her story has to end eventually. Not Sophie’s trickery or Tedros’ betrayal, not the School Master’s bloodthirsty vision or her mother’s fear of him. Only the closing of the storybook will haunt her.

“It’s scary,” Mordred agrees, taking her hand. “But you’ll be okay.”

* * *

The day she goes back to school, her mother packs a suitcase as well. “I’m going to go and visit my family,” she explains, excitedly. This was not a plan she had discussed with Agatha, though she tries not to let it show on her face. “It’s been over sixteen years since they last saw me, I have so much to tell them.”   
  
“Why didn’t you visit before?” Agatha questions as they walk to the Flowerground entrance.

“It was too dangerous. It was dangerous for me to have left Bloodbrook when we went to get your dresses. Now, though?” She grins at the sky. Agatha’s known her mother for her whole life, known she could smile beautifully, and had seen it many times before. Never has she seemed so happy before. “I can go _ wherever I want.” _   
  
“And you’ll write me, won’t you?” Agatha prods, worriedly, trunks trundling along behind them on the dusty road. She’s wearing the red dress with the lace on the neckline and sleeves, her clumps stomping in the mud. Her mother had found the ensemble charming.

“Of course, dearest. I’ll write you the minute I get there,” Callis assures her, pressing her hand briefly. “You have to promise me not to fall off the face of the planet the minute you get there, this time, okay?”

Agatha winces, “I am sorry about that.”

“It’s okay. I know that I upset you by not showing up on Visitation day.”   


“You have to actually come this time, though,” she adds.

“Of course.”

“No, seriously.” Agatha says, taking her mother’s elbow and holding her in place, stopping in the middle of the muddy road, their trunks trundling to a stop behind them.  _ “Promise.” _

Callis’ face slackens a little, and then she raises her hand, pointer finger glowing green as she recites, “I swear on the blood of the coven into which I was born, I will actually turn up on Visitation day.”   


Agatha snorts at how mundane the end of the promise sounds, and says, “Good.”

“Now you swear you’ll write,” Callis says, grabbing Agatha’s elbow when she makes to keep walking.

She groans and her finger glows orange, “I swear on the blood of my mother, I will actually write you this semester.”

Her mother nods, a small frown on her face, and they continue down the road. She muses, “I suppose it’s no use making you promise to stay out of trouble this time, given how well that worked last time.”   


“It’ll be easier without a witch on the loose,” Agatha points out, dodging a pot hole in the road, so as to not ruin her dress the first time she wears it. She thinks that would give Beatrix the wrong idea about their friendship and her gift.

“That’s still incredibly troubling to me,” Callis informs her, grimly.   
  
“If she’d actually known what she was doing, she’d have done so much more damage. The fact that I tutored her in half the things she did made it a  _ lot  _ less impressive.”

_ “Agatha.”  _ She cackles as they reach the tree stump, and rummages through her peacoat pockets for her Flowerground return ticket.

“You stay safe, okay?” She says, pulling it triumphantly from her pocket and planting a kiss on her mother’s cheek. “And I also want a comprehensive list of relatives, okay? I can’t believe I’ve been alive for sixteen years and I didn’t know you had family. That’s  _ crazy. _ I probably have  _ cousins, _ wow.”

She doesn’t see Callis’ dark look. She sinks into the Flowerground before she can.

* * *

Tedros didn’t manage to send the book back before they get back to school. Agatha worries about it on the Flowerground over, until Beatrix arrives, and then they catch up for the rest of the trip. She could mail it home because her mother will be travelling, but it won’t get put back before her mother arrives home, and then her mother will question why it left the house in the first place. It’s still probably the only move she can make. She’ll just have to say she accidentally packed it in her trunk.

That is, unless Tedros left it back in Camelot. In which case, they’re fucked.

The first day back is a little chaotic, as they try to make sense of the castle renovations. Agatha’s been placed in the same dorm room, but this time with Kiko and a girl Agatha isn’t familiar with, whose name is Ava. It’s going to be a strange adjustment, sharing a room, but Agatha’s not exactly going to complain about it, especially when they’ve been sharing since they got here, she just had the luck of scaring everyone off at first.

Putting the uniform back on is still not great — Agatha had forgotten how much she didn’t like it — but she pushes past that. She did it all of last semester, and this time she knows she’s coming into it with a whole lot of people on her side. That being said, she has to find half of them first.

While boys swarm the dorms in Valor, Tedros is nowhere in sight, and when asked, Chaddick simply shrugs and gestures vaguely, saying, “He just dumped his stuff and ran off with some thick book in his hands.”

Agatha bites the inside of her cheek, thanking him, and rushing for the breezeway to Honor tower. He’s got to be there. It’s the only place he’d go if he wanted to see her straight away.

She feels a little out of breath once she reaches the top of the stairs and pushes her way into Merlin’s Menagerie, looking out at all the hedges that have been magically regrown and recut to look exactly the same as it did before Sophie’s attack. Agatha imagines that Tedros would have wanted to see any changes, should there be any.

Agatha wishes she had the voice to call his name when she sees him. She doesn’t. The sound of it, the letters, they get caught in her throat as it closes up at the sight of him, choking with the sudden impulse to cry. He’s turned away from her, and just as Chaddick said, he’s holding a thick, old book.  _ The Soldier and Death _ is held almost limply in his left hand as he surveys the new and improved view from the balcony. Agatha almost wants to turn around and leave him as he is, for a moment she doesn’t think she can say hello again, she doesn’t think she can forgive, because for a second she can remember the betrayal in his eyes when Sophie’s trick had finally caught him, she can remember the sadness, the rage, the helplessness behind his eyes as he strung the bow back. He was her best friend, and he’d wanted to kill her for that split second.

Can she really, actually forgive that through a few letters, a few words, some apple seeds, and a book, all with the intention to buy back her loyalty and friendship? She’s thought this all before, but it comes flooding back just when it shouldn’t, just when she’s supposed to be okay, just when she’s supposed to be able to look him right in the face again, let him touch her again, be his friend again, but now, once again, Agatha’s not sure she can. She doesn’t know if she’s  _ that _ forgiving.

At some point, while all these thoughts are stirring up a whirlpool in her head, Agatha must make some kind of a sound; a sharp inhale of breath, the start of a word, or maybe she took a step back and managed to kick a low stone wall, but whatever it is, Tedros hears it, and he turns, book in hand.

His face is hopeful, until he sees hers — fear, sadness, the realisation that she  _ cannot fucking do this _ — and then the expression drops. Just like that, he knows it’s not done, it’s not fixed as he’d hoped — but then again,  _ how _ could he have hoped a month apart would have healed all the wounds left behind?  _ How _ could he have thought that?

“Agatha,” Tedros begins, and his voice breaks, and that’s it, that’s all that takes, and Agatha cannot stop the dam.

Like a tsunami the emotions that had rolled back across the summer come rushing forward, too fast, too high to avoid. Agatha breaks. She hates crying in front of other people so fucking much — she hates crying at _ all, _ she hates feeling that weak — but she can’t stop it. Beyond her tears, she can see him faltering, not sure if he should go to her as she crumples in on herself, knowing he should comfort her, knowing he wants to, not knowing if she wants his comfort.

_ (Agatha _ doesn’t even know if she wants his comfort. She doesn’t know what she wants from him, if anything at all.)

In the end, Tedros must decide that comforting her even if she doesn’t want him is better than not doing anything at all. He approaches slowly, as one might approach a wounded animal, and he places the book carefully on a nearby bench. He takes her hands, gently, and winces as he looks at her, as if he can read her chaotic thoughts.

“Hey—” Agatha chokes, a red rash spreading down her neck as she attempts to sound casual. It’s a sad fuccking attempt, given she’s crying really hard. She hates that he’s seeing her like this, she hates that he hurt her like this, she hates that Sophie did this to them, left behind something rotten for them to remember her by, even if Agatha wants her back badly. She wonders, wildly, if she’s doomed to always want things that cause her pain. That would make sense for her. “I wasn’t—”

“I’m so sorry,” Tedros says, squeezing her hands. Agatha shudders, bending into him almost, wanting to rip away from him, to hurt him, even as she wants to crumple into his arms. She misses how easily they used to exist together. How sad she misses something that only lasted a few months. “I don’t know how to begin, I don’t deserve to be forgiven. I don’t—“

“Stop. Just stop for a second. Let me—” Agatha sucks in a long breath and pulls away from him, taking a step back, and looking at him through her stupid tears. “I know you feel bad. I _fucking know._ I know you want to fix it and I know that you just want it all back. That’s how I feel too, but it’s not going to be easy for me to get over this, okay? It was so much easier when you were just words on a page, and I miss you so much, but it’s so  _ hard  _ to rationalise that you believed her enough to — did you forget who you were talking to? You never trusted her, why did you—?”

“I didn’t think—”   


“You didn’t  _ think?” _ She repeats hollowly.

Tedros stares at her, eyes wide and full of his own unshed tears. “Agatha.” She’s struck by the last time he cried, when he wouldn’t even let her look at him. How times have changed.

“I don’t even know how to begin. I just feel so angry and sad all of the time. Angry enough to hurt you,” she admits, her hollow voice filling out again, the rage and the sorrow thickening her voice as a new wave of tears threatens her. “I just want to think  _ kindly  _ of you again, but all I can seem to feel is anger and I don’t want that for us. For _ you.” _

“I know,” he says and releases her hands, slumping until he sits down on the same bench he discarded  _ The Soldier and Death _ on.   
  
“Tedros you wanted to kill me, and you’re my best friend. I miss you.” Just this morning it felt so easy to be okay. And it was okay when he was just a stack of letters on her nightstand and the barest thought at the back of her mind. Now she finds herself almost stripped of being okay, like she’d been wearing a costume, playing a part so well she started to believe it. “It hurts so much, I just want to hurt _you_ but I just want things to go back to normal and I don’t trust myself around you.”

“A—”   


“I don’t know how to fix this,” she interrupts, clumps shuffling awkwardly on the gravel under her feet. “I don’t know how to make it feel okay —  _ how  _ do I make it feel okay? No one ever told me that forgiving would be this hard. I don’t…”   


Tedros suddenly looks up at her, eyes steely. “Then hurt me.”

“No, Tedros,” Agatha responds immediately, aghast he’d even suggest it, much less demand it.

“You said it yourself,” he continues as if he hadn’t heard her, reaching out to take her hand. “I deserve it—”

_“No.”_ she repeats, pulling away from his grip. She knew he felt bad, but she didn’t  _ actually  _ want to hurt him, as much as the wild, animalistic witch in her soul begged her to. “I’m not going to feed your guilty conscience. I’m not going to build your monument of self degradation. That’s not me. I won’t do that to you.” Agatha inhales deeply through her nose and then out through her mouth, trying to regulate her breathing enough to stop hiccuping in the middle of sentences. When she looks up, he’s staring at his clasped hands. She gingerly sits down beside him, mirroring his pose and says, “I just can’t come back yet. I’m not ready. I need more time.”

“Take the book back, at least,” Tedros whispers, indicating to the thick book placed between them like a child's imitation of a wall.

“Tedros,” Agatha says, softly, and she really does miss him. She misses their jokes and their easy air, misses how they keep accidentally hurting each other in small degrees, and the care that follows immediately. _Always_ the care. Above everything else, Agatha misses the care that flowed easily between them.

“I know,” Tedros says, once again and he breathes in deeply, his whole body moving with it. She watches him through the curls of his hair hanging in his face, the fear and sadness in his eyes, the guilt. “I’ll do anything to make this better. I won’t talk to you, if you don’t want me to, I’ll sit on the whole other side of classrooms, you won’t even have to look at me. But what are we going to do about the Ball challenges coming up?”

“That can be the exception,” she allows, already feeling lighter, now that he’s proposed a way for her to come back, as slowly as she needs. “I just need time. But I’ll be…I’ll be something else, then.”

“I…”

He sounds so sad. She misses him so much it hurts. She hates that she’s hurting him even now, even as he tries to fix it. Agatha takes his hand and he jolts. “I’m sorry.”

Tedros looks up at her. His face is pink and his throat bobs as he swallows at the lump of tears that has obviously gathered there. He hasn’t done as well as she’d assumed at keeping the tears at bay. Some trails streak down his cheeks, and his blue eyes swim in them. “Can I still write to you?” He requests.

“We’re going to be living in the same castle, Tedros,” Agatha responds as if on autopilot, her gentle tone overcoming the harshness of the reply.

“Let me still write to you,” he says again, holding her hand a little tighter, his warm skin against hers. “You said it yourself — it was easier when we were just words to each other.”

Agatha stares at him. In a way, she can see why he’s holding onto her so tightly, why her so-called betrayal had hit him so hard. He has no one else. It’s so much to be on her shoulders, but all the same an honour. She knows why he can’t lose her, and it’s the same reason she felt angry when her mother said she was going to see her family. Once there’s no one left around to love you, you turn to whatever else you can find. Their patchwork friendship makes sense and his desperation and his fevered actions all make sense, and in that same way, Agatha cannot bear to lose him either.

“...yes.” She agrees, quietly, squeezing his hand back. “Write to me. We can work on it all.”

“Thank you,” Tedros breathes in relief, releasing her. “For giving me a chance, that is.”

“All I wanted to do was forgive you,” she admits as she stands back up, picking the book up as she goes. It feels good to have gotten those feelings off her chest, out of her tsunami mind. “I guess that’s proof I’m an Ever, through and through.”

“Oh?” Tedros inquires, behind her. Agatha turns, only a few metres from him, her smile dropping a little.

“Yes,” she says. “Because if I was Evil, I would have tried to kill you, instead.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good evening folks! I got tired of waiting and decided to post this, now that I have my driving license and my band stuff is all cleared up again, I should have more time for writing again (key word: should). Thanks so much for your support during my hiatus, can't garuantee that my updates will be as scheduled as before (or as frequent) but I'll try my best, folks. As usual, hope you liked the chapter, tell me all about it in the comments, bc I'd love to know what you think *insert heart eyes emoji here*. Thanks!!!


	6. what good has come from learning to pretend?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I thought your family hated me,” Tedros probes, carefully, still looking bewildered.
> 
> “They certainly dislike you,” Agatha allows. “But my mother’s agreed to be civil with you.”
> 
> “And your aunt?”
> 
> “No such promises.” Tedros gulps, but she gives him an encouraging smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is from Nonbeliever by Lucy Dacus (bc it gives me big Tedros&Agatha in fight vibes)
> 
> All the OC’s in this chapter were fully conceptualised by Kate (@pumpkinpaperweight) and I was given full consent to mess around with them. Don’t recognise Tisiphone and co.? Go read ["Idle Worship"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28152099) RIGHT NOW!!!
> 
> As for TW’s on this chapter, we only have some mild physical altercations, one instance of drowning, and the usual school nastiness. See you on the other side!!!

It’s almost comical how easily Agatha manages to avoid him. Of course, with the added ease of only having a select few classes together, separate dorm rooms in separate towers, different friends to keep the company of (aided by Ever’s and Never’s tentative friendship after Sophie’s brief reign), and plenty of places to hide or turn around, it’s not as if she’s putting in all that much effort to do it. In fact, they only have two classes together, and in Forest Group it’s very easy to just stand at opposite sides of the group, and pick different people when they’re needed to pair up. In Good Deeds, Tedros dutifully sits in the back row, and watches the back of her head. Her shoulders tighten and raise when his gaze passes over the crown of her head. He puts it down to her inherent magic, her defences rising, her skin prickling. Tedros always makes sure to look away quickly after those moments.

Friday evenings and Sunday afternoons, they have Ball challenges, and they only interact as much as they need to. They make polite conversation, with choppy eye contact that gets them mediocre ranks (Pollux is a fucking menace about eye contact. Agatha jokes he’d probably like them dead-eyed like fish, and she’d smiled when Tedros laughed. The smile didn’t last, but it was there). She gets better at not stepping on his feet, and Tedros holds her empty glasses when she rushes off for a bathroom break with half the other Evergirl’s. He hopes it’s enough, but Agatha almost always returns chilly again, mouth a hard thin line, eyes avoiding his own. He thinks she must catch sight of herself in a mirror or something and remember that she’s still angry with him. Tedros understands. He forgets sometimes, too.

(If people notice the frosty air they take on in those moments, they don’t say anything. Tedros is thankful for that.)

The only real problem is that they keep ending up in the Groom Room at the same time as each other. Tedros will arrive as soon as class lets out to do some swimming, and he’ll get back into the main room, about to verbally spar with Chaddick or Tarquin about actually sparring (now that he’s down a regular partner) and she’ll be there, on the other side of the room, doing warm-up stretches so she can whale on a dummy. Obviously he’s prouder than her about his abilities, because she doesn’t seem to mind fighting an inanimate object. Tedros prefers a moving target.

Every time she catches his eye there, she looks half a moment away from turning around and walking out. She never does, though, and Tedros thinks it’s mostly spite. He thinks it’s partly that she knows she has to get used to his presence, if they’re ever going to be friends again, and partly trying to best him in this silent game; who will leave first. They’re both too stubborn to give it up for a long long time, usually longer than anyone else is there.

(Sometimes, Tedros considers going to her after the last student has left. But he never does. He knows that’s not what she wants, and any silent sign he might see from her that would indicate otherwise he must imagine, because Agatha is straightforward. She said she’d come to him when the time is right, when she’s ready to make good and forgive him. She has said nothing on the matter yet, so Tedros leaves first, most times.)

He leaves her letters on Friday mornings, or evenings when he has a busy day, always accompanied by a book or trinket or treat, chocolates and other candies, pilfered from Hansel’s Haven the way she taught him. Tedros details his week in those letters, telling her about ranks he disagrees with, tests he aced or flunked, gossip she may have missed (not likely now, given she and Beatrix are thick as thieves these days), always asking her to write back at the end, if she likes. The ends of the letter are usually filled with scraps of parchment he tore from his writing set, filled with jokes she missed that he thinks she’d like, jokes he wished he’d been able to tell her. Mostly, they seem to be off the mark, if Kiko’s information is good, but occasionally one lands and Agatha almost chokes to death on gingerbread from laughing. Apparently she and Ava get quite worried when she does this.

It seems like everyone, Chaddick and Kiko included, is waiting with bated breath for something to happen, the other shoe to drop. And really, what could they be expecting? Everything Agatha had wanted to say, she had said. Every agreement they could have made has been made. Yes, Tedros still has some things to say, but mostly they’re all variations of _I’m sorry._

Aside from the obvious renovations done to the castles, there are a few other changes Tedros runs into. The first is that the School Master’s tower stands dark and empty in the center of Halfway Bay, and now, no matter how long you watch the window from the clearing at lunch, you’ll never see a shadow move inside of it. The second is the skulking new Evil student, brought in to replace Sophie and keep numbers even.

(This is one of the only things that Agatha actively seeks him out for these days, so she can whisper to Tedros about him, all second-hand information, told to her by Hester. His name is Aric, according to the Coven, and _he’s going to learn a fucking lesson in a minute if he doesn’t keep cheating his way up the ranks._ Agatha uses air quotes to illustrate the way the witches had spoken of him and shrugged. “Apparently all the Evil teachers are as scared of him as everyone else, even Lady Lesso, fearsome as she is, which is more than worrying.”)

Tedros asks Dovey about him one day, after class, and she admits to him that she’s actually not sure where he came from. “He just appeared,” she says, “claiming to be Sophie’s replacement. Lady Lesso says he’s more cruel than any other student she’s ever had, he torments the other students and tries to kill her and the other professors on a daily basis.”

“Surely that’s far enough to be expelled,” he offers, worriedly.

Dovey raises a tired eyebrow at him. “Surely you’ve realised by now, Tedros; student’s don’t get expelled from this school. You graduate, you fail, or you die.”

The third and final change, is the appearance of a new Evergirl in their midst, one that puts their numbers to sixty-one Evergirls and fifty-nine Everboys. This is one of the other very few matters that Agatha deigns to ask Tedros about, and he explains it as carefully as he can, trying his best to be respectful and correct. “Her name is Yara. She used to be Tristan, but over the break she decided she didn’t like being Tristan very much, and she didn’t like being a boy very much either.”

“Oh,” Agatha had said, quite simply, taking in the information. She cast a look at the ginger-haired girl who was sitting by Chaddick and chatting with Beatrix, Kiko hovering awkwardly outside the circle of students, waiting for her turn to talk to Yara. “Well, I think that’s very brave of her.”

Tedros smiled at her, even though she wasn’t looking at him, probably not noticing, for once, his eyes on her, because there really wasn’t a single thing she wouldn’t take on board.

The moment didn’t last too long, however, as very quickly Dot came to fetch her and dragged her away across the clearing to sit in a gazebo with the two remaining members of the Coven, both of which were glaring at him. Obviously they hadn’t forgiven him either. Tedros averted his gaze and strolled over to Chaddick and Yara, plonking himself down in the empty spot to Cahddick’s left.

* * *

_Dear Agatha,_

_Enclosed is a drawing (a true likeness, I’m sure you’ll agree) of our cat! Reaper was my pet before I started my tenure at the School for Evil, and my family have been keeping him safe for me since I left. I’ll tell you now they’re all very cross with me for not having visited sooner, and for not even sending a letter to let them know I was alive, though they’re quite thankful to have me back. My sister, Eris, is going to accompany me to the School for Good on Visitation Day this semester, as she’s adamant about meeting you. Ismene, my other sister, would have been similarly inclined, but she wrangles her own household and is therefore indisposed for the time being._

_You made me promise a comprehensive family tree, so I have enclosed one as well, updated as it must be since I left, I was enthralled by the new additions myself, and they went ahead and added you when I arrived. They also made me send you some of the family’s heirloom herbs (they’ve been cultivating them since the dawn of time, my dear, so feeling very honoured is something you should mention in your letter back to me) all of them wishing good health and luck in the future._

_I’ll have you know, however, that spreading around the fact that your mother’s family are Wardwell’s is probably not the wisest move, if you’re hoping to not make enemies at school. I’m sure you’ve heard of them before, so the realisation that your relatives are powerful, dangerous sorcerers, renowned all through the Endless Woods for their connections, business, and black market antics is probably a startling one. Eris found it quite amusing that you’d spoken of my family many times without my mentioning that you are related to them. She’s very excited to meet you. All her other nieces and nephews, she says, are fine, but having a Princess in the family is sure to make things a bit more interesting._

_With all of my love,_

_Your mother_

_P.S — in terms of codes you could use in letters, have you considered fruits/vegetables/herbs? Using the original latin name will surely deepen the difficulty of cracking it, and so long as you and your correspondent have a copy of what each means it should be very comprehensive._

* * *

Agatha writes him a letter, six weeks after they arrive back at school. It’s five pages long, made up, intermittently, of long rambles and short notes, just on things she wants him to know, just things she’s been feeling, a series of diary entries that he’s been allowed access to. He reads it on the roof, because he doesn’t want any of the boys reading it over his shoulder.

(It’s freezing up there, though. The snow that blizzards around Evil’s castle only dusts Good like icing sugar on a gingerbread house. However, that doesn’t keep out the chill.)

She tells him about her mother’s cat that will be home at the end of semester (how he’s bald and wrinkly and nasty to everyone but Callis, which she finds charming and he finds alarming), and that her mother is a part of the biggest crime family in the Endless Woods. Tedros has heard of the Wardwell’s, allies of his father’s during part of his reign (before he went off his rocker and banned magic in the kingdom), and he’s heard of what they’re capable of. He’s actually not that surprised that Agatha is one of them, though it deepens his confusion over her Goodness. Surely the child of a family so deeply entrenched in Evil would follow in that family’s footsteps, right? But all signs point to no.

One of the pages is just a proposal for their code, something he’d forgotten about since they returned to school and she dismissed him, tearily on the roof. She lists fruit and herbs for certain phrases or conversation starters, using flower language for part of it, proposing certain kingdoms and people have their own codenames, and Tedros folds it, placing it in his doublet pocket to address later. Obviously she’s not been as dismissive of him as he’d expected. Of course she’s been watching, biding her time, the witch-girl she spent so much time believing she was taking over once more. There’s so much about Agatha that one cannot separate from her upbringing, and they certainly shouldn’t try.

He is pleased, though, at the sudden engagement she’s handed him, nonchalant in parts of the letter, easy, like they used to be (“Is it just me, or is something up between Chaddick and Yara? Thought I noticed something brewing last semester, but I was a little bit preoccupied…”), and deeply serious in others (“The fact that Bloodbrook doesn’t even have a working sewage system, and is still relying on wells to deliver water is atrocious and outdated. One of my plans for after I graduate, so long as I’m not turned into a fern, is to petition the Wolf King to address the many problems that have been arising in his kingdom for a few decades now.”) and it feels just like last semester. Tedros really misses her.

So much in fact, that he forgets his silent rule, and approaches her in the Groom Room that day. She’s talking to Kiko and Ava, showing them stances. Obviously they’ve asked her to train them in self defence or something to that effect, and she’s humouring them. He stands a few metres away and then hollers, “Your stance is off.”

Agatha freezes where she stands, whatever words she was planning on saying dying on her lips. Her shoulders tense and she breathes out slowly before looking over her shoulder at him, briefly, scowling as she says, “No, it’s not.”

Tedros snorts. “I think I’d know,” he counters, crossing his arms over his chest, “given that I taught it to you, but you know, go ahead. Prove me wrong.” Perhaps it would be better not to goad her when they’re just making inroads, but whole sections of their friendship had just been barbs thrown while they sparred. Surely she recognises his tone.

“I think _I’d_ know,” Agatha replies, straightening and turning to face him, “given that I’ve been practicing it almost _every day_ since you taught it to me. So, unless you’re actually a terrible teacher and are just realising it now, I think you’re just nitpicking and I’m going to ask you to go away, now.”

Tedros bites his lip and considers it for a moment, before replying, “I’ll go away if you prove me wrong.”

Her eyes close in frustration, and she brushes her fringe out of her eyes, sighing, _“Tedros…”_

“Agatha,” he replies in the same put-upon tone and shrugs, “if you can beat me in a fight, using _that_ stance, I’ll go away.”

Kiko scowls, “That’s not fair—”

“Stay out of this, Kiko,” Agatha throws over her shoulder — not coldly, _no_ she’s simply preparing her for the fallout that will inevitably happen because of this. Tedros can already see what a mistake he’s made. If it had been a softer approach perhaps she would have been more receptive. But pride and ego and offence never tend to yield the best results, and that’s a lesson he’s been trying to learn for himself for years. “You want me to beat you in a fight?”

“Yeah.” He’s lost the heat in the realisation of his mistake.  
  
“Well,” she crosses her arms over her chest, suddenly looking slightly amused, “that’s not difficult.”

“You’re out of practice.” He points out, knowing it to be true. Not like she had a gym in Bloodbrook (or a library, apparently…).

“And you’re overconfident,” Agatha throws back.

He frowns, “Is that what you think?”

“That _is_ what I think.” Agatha steps back on one foot, widening her stance, back to what he’d seen as incorrect, and is now realising is actually quite good. She raises her fists up, in front of her face. “So, are we going to spar, or what?”

Tedros settles into a sparring position and lets her make the first move. Agatha had become very precise about her movements in fights like these. She assessed him every time, looking for new injuries to exploit (a Never trait she no doubt picked up from her mother), playing it out in her head before she starts, because she knows him so well and knows how he reacts to things, his most likely responses and counterstrikes. Tedros can’t help but feel pinned under the weight of her dark eyes, squinting at him as they circle each other on the mat.

In the end, she surprises him. He’s so lost in thought, trying to prepare for whatever bombardment she has coming for him, he’s wholly unprepared.

Agatha’s attack comes for his neck, and while he mostly evades it with just the scrape of her fingers curling, he’s still shaken by the suddenness.

“Are you going to give me a challenge?” Agatha taunts, though thankfully, it’s less angry than her last remark.

“Sorry, I got bored waiting.”

She scowls at him, and they continue to circle each other. They’ve drawn a much more overt crowd than usual with their conversation and impromptu fight. Kiko and Ava are still watching nervously, whispering to each other.

Tedros tries to get the next move in first, kicking out at her legs, trying to use her stance against her so maybe he can still be right, but Agatha quickly fends him off, bragging her shoulder into the corner of his chest and throwing him almost off balance. They’re both going to have nasty bruises from that one, but he doesn’t have time to consider it fully, because she’s taken his distraction as permission for an onslaught.

Tedros is ashamed to say that he really doesn’t have the energy to fight her off. After a full day of physical training and a long swim, he’s not exactly leaping, and Agatha’s studies are almost always theoretical, so she’s got to be brimming with the stuff. Says a lot about his stamina too.

In just a few moments, she has him flat on his back, bracing him with the familiar position of her forearm to his throat, keeping him down with her weight on top of him. “You should take on some other sport,” he wheezes from behind her arm.

“I’ll have Chaddick teach me how to fence,” Agatha clips, sweating and only a little out of breath herself. “Would be nice to beat you with a sword to the throat for once.”

Tedros can’t help it. He beams at her.

She looks shocked at the action and immediately pulls away, fully away, back to her feet, backing away, turning, running from the room. Everyone gathered gapes after her or down at him, not quite sure what they’ve just witnessed. Tedros can’t say that he’s quite sure either. He knows it wasn’t the welcome back he’d been hoping for.

Him and his _stupid mouth._

* * *

_“Why did she fade away?” He asks. Agatha just frowns, staring at the tea in her hands, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She thinks it was one of the nymphs who left her like this, alone on the front steps of the decimated castle in her ruined ball gown. Everyone else has gone to bed. She should be in bed. She doesn’t want to go._

_“What?” She replies, vaguely, and then sees in her peripheral vision Tedros step into view and sit down beside her, looking confused, and a little angry._

_“Both of you,” Tedros continues, without answering her question. He’s staring straight ahead like her, eyes on the darkened woods. Agatha thinks of the way it had scared her, what it may contain. Now she knows she should fear what’s inside the fence much more. “Why did you almost go with her? Where did she even go?”_

_“I don’t know,” Agatha tells him truthfully, holding the lip of her teacup against her chin, taking in the chilliness of the thin china. “I just know that I’m…I’m never going to get that chance again.” Agatha fucking hates crying, but tonight it’s all she seems to be doing. Tears spring to her eyes. It’s been haunting her all night, the uninformed choice she made that she now thinks she regrets._

_“But why did it happen.” His tone is steely. He’s never taken that tone with her. She didn’t think he’d ever try, especially now, only a few hours after he begged her to forgive him, to take his hand and stay with him._ _  
_ _  
_ _“Because magic, Tedros,” she sighs, taking a sip. The tea is cold and overbrewed. She tips it out on the steps in front of her, feeling it splash on her bare feet. She could really care less._

_“No.” Tedros sounds utterly wrecked. Agatha assumes she sounds the same. “Tell me.”_

_It lights a fire in her, an oppressive heat, that he thinks he has the right to the inner workings of her story. Maybe he should have accepted that he was in a story in the first place. Maybe he should have realised the danger, realised there was no one he could truly trust, because villains often came from nowhere, from places of trust, and that betrayal would be one of the better wounds to come out with._

_(After all, someone always dies at the end of a story. Surely he knows that by now. His own father proved that.)_

_“Because we’re in a story,” Agatha replies, instead of saying what she’s really thinking. He couldn’t take it, all the darkness, all the hate and sadness swirling inside of her heart and lungs and kidneys. “And the only way for a story to end is for someone to die and the only way for her to go home was to get True Love’s Kiss.”_

_He stops breathing, his fists clench. Agatha turns her head just slightly to look at him, and she sees him watching the black night sky ahead like it will tell him how to make sense of everything. “True Love’s Kiss?” Tedros replies, voice strained even further._

_“I don’t know. Truly. I really don’t know why it worked, I didn’t think it would, I honestly didn’t think about it at all. I don’t even know why I was so torn up about it, but…for some reason she was important enough for me to try to help her and keep trying even when she didn’t want help and keep trying when she was beyond help. And now we both have what we wanted.” Agatha stares at him until he looks back down at her, and she knows there’s betrayal in her eyes. Clearly he can tell that he is not forgiven, not in the slightest. She saw him consider it, she saw the rage and the sadness when he’d believed Sophie in the ballroom. “But now everything is a mess.”_

_He blinks at her, “She’s your true love?”_

_“She’s something.” Agatha dismisses, looking away, not really wanting to discuss that particular tidbit._

_“She’s a witch—“_

_“Maybe,” Agatha interrupts, sick of that line of conversation. “Or maybe she was a frightened girl who wanted to go home.”_

_“You’re oversimplifying it,” Tedros says, tone accusatory._

_She snorts, and retaliates, “And you’re not being very forgiving.”_

_“Agatha. You don’t love her, do you? Not after everything she did.”_

_There’s a long silence, and a brand new, cavernous rift in between them. Agatha’s never felt like this before. It’s ruining her, staining her permanently, this hate and dismay._

_She stares at the floor. “I’m starting to think that love isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. If it got me here…” Agatha shakes her head. “I’m going to bed.”_

_He doesn’t stop her, and she doesn’t see him again for a while._

* * *

“Lord, you look so fucking miserable,” Hester drawls as she sits down.

Tedros stares at her. It’s not like there’s a Great Divide between the Ever’s and Never’s anymore (after everything that happened at the Circus, everyone is aware of how dependant they are on the other side for survival), but Tedros usually isn’t party to that rule. Usually Never’s avoid him. Don’t want any bad blood that he might carry over into his rule, don’t want to be another reason Camelot’s ban on magic is extended out across the lands (because surely other leaders will follow his lead if he asks them to?).

They also all like Agatha better, which he understands quite well. So why is her Never best friend plunking herself down beside him on a bench in the sparsely populated gazebo, in her big wool cloak, flicking snail shells at him as she eats, as if they’re friends?

“Like, I almost feel sorry for you,” she continues through a mouthful, “but it’s also _fucking hilarious.”_

He assumes the swearing is for effect, and the conversation topic a pleasantry. Hester, and most Never’s for that fact, never approach without a reason, which is why Tedros finds himself scowling at her and asking, “Can I help you with something?”

She rolls her eyes, the tattooed demon on her neck following suit. “Do you get tired being polite all the time, your highness, or are you using a version of sarcasm that’s yet to grace my ears?”

He scowls at her, and watches her bear her teeth in some parody of a grin in return. Witches really are strange, taking glee from the weirdest places. “What do you want, Hester?” he asks, triedly.

The witch in question offers him a snail, and sighs when he shakes his head. “You and Agatha being angry at each other is really annoying.

It’s not what Tedros was expecting her to say, despite her opening statement, so he ends up saying, “I’m sorry, _what?”_

“I know you’re not _angry_ at her, and she’s not _particularly_ angry at _you,_ really,” Hester continues, talking over him as if he’s a nuisance she’s trying to talk sense into, which he supposes in her eyes he probably is — “She’s just sad and mopey and misses you but is too proud to let it go, and _you’re_ cowering like a beaten dog instead of _addressing the problem,_ so she doesn’t think you _care_ anymore—“

Tedros holds up his hands, alarmed at the truths she’s spouting, _“Hang_ on—”

“I mean, _seriously?_ You’re supposed to be the _chivalrous prince._ What do they even _teach_ you in chivalry? When you make a mistake sit quietly until the person you wronged forgives you? No, come _on,_ I’m taught to hurt and attack, and even _I_ know you do everything in your power to make it better.”

“She told me specifically to leave her alone.” He states, face red. It’s really none of her business, but it’s worse that she’s right, and she can obviously tell.

“Agatha doesn’t like being alone, trust me on that one,” Hester says seriously, leaning in close. Her breath smells of uncooked snails. Tedros tries not to flinch back. “It’s why she let you write to her over the holiday. It’s why she’s _still_ letting you write to her.”

Tedros blanches, “You _know_ about that?”  
  
“Duh. Who do you think I am? Her talking Stymph sidekick with epic hair?” She lets out a shrill cackle and when she’s done her face shifts back to being dead blank. “I’ve known that girl since she was like _three,_ and if there’s one thing I know about her it’s that she doesn’t like to stew in things. You need to step up and make this right or I’ll _throttle you_ before you can be crowned, and take the throne for myself.”

Tedros stares at her, mind racing, knowing in his sinking heart that she’s right. That he’s let nearly two months pass with not a word to Agatha, apart from taunts he used when he thought he could treat her how he used to. And what good did that do him? He drove her even further away. “How do I even begin?” He asks, quietly.

Hester however, is wholly unimpressed with this display, and picks at her nails. “How should I know? I’m too busy planning my invasion of Camelot.” She picks up a snail and savagely bites through its shell, ignoring Tedros’ partly—horrified, partly—disgusted gaze. “As part of my reign, I’m outlawing people who _can’t_ do magic, and my entire official court will be gnomes. Yuba will be my main advisor. I will remodel the kingdom in traditional gnome decor and ideals.”

“Hester, why are you doing this?” Tedros demands, feeling vaguely sick.

“I told you,” Hester hisses, her demon rearing its horns as she tosses her hair over her shoulder, lip curling in distaste. “It’s _so fucking annoying_ when Agatha’s upset with someone. Because she’s not talking to you, she’s talking to me or Ani or Dot, and it’s all just _oh Tedros this,_ or _Tedros and I used to do that._ I’m sick of it, I’m done, you fix this or I kill you. I just want her to stop missing you so loudly, so I can talk to her about my future Evil schemes and gnome conspiracy theories. Where did the gnomes go, Tedros?”

“I don’t know.” He answers, honestly.

“No, I didn’t think you would,” she agrees, darkly. “But believe me, if I ever find them, they’ll be on _my_ side about all this.”

Hester stomps back off across the grass to where she left the rest of her coven, and Agatha, blinking owlishly at him. She left her snails in front of him. One of them got squashed underfoot. Tedros gets up to go and sit with Yara and Chaddick.

* * *

_Dear Agatha,_

_Eris is very excited about the upcoming Visitation Day, and keeps pestering me about it, so you’d better be a damned delight or she’ll be really disappointed. Not that I see how she could be, but that was the exact threat she wanted me to transcribe for you, so here we are._

_I’ve now met all of your cousins and can definitively say you’ll love all of them. Tisiphone is two years your senior and much taller than me (so probably taller than you too), and her two younger brothers, Xander and Odell, are around your age, and are currently squires for knights in Netherwood. Both quite soft spoken, well mannered, powerful boys. Ismene, my other sister, raised them well. Tisiphone is on her way to being a powerful diplomat, so I’d recommend you correspond at some point, if you’re to move forward with your current career plan. She’ll be very helpful, given her current well of experience._

_As for Reaper--_

“Hey!” Beatrix screeches, and Agatha looks up quickly — so quickly it hurts her neck, but she puts that aside as her gaze snaps onto her friend, face clouded with anger and shock, halfway to her feet already. Reena’s straight after her, and Agatha discards her mother’s letter on the table in between them in order to chase after them. She’s been ignoring the growing rowdiness on the Never-side of the clearing, imagining some weird bonding incantation was taking place. Now she can see clearly that a crowd has gathered, but not in a wholesomely dark way.

No. They’re an audience to something ghastly, Ever’s and Never’s alike.

Agatha catches Kiko’s elbow, maybe a hundred metres from the fray, as the shorter girl runs in the other direction, and wrenches her to face her. “What’s going on?” She demands, frantically, confused and worried.

“Chaddick told me to go get the Deans,” Kiko splutters, looking upset. “It’s Tedros. And Aric. And, sort of Yara—”

Agatha releases her, blood cold in her veins, adrenaline setting in. Aric. And _Tedros._ A fight, most likely, given Beatrix’s reaction, and the gathering crowd. “Go,” she says sharply, and Kiko nods as she turns to run again.

Agatha sprints towards the fray, heart thumping in her chest. Hester’s told her all about Aric’s antics, about his negligence and general evil proclivities that surpass what one might consider morally grey, into straight sadism and cold blooded cruelty. It can’t be anything good, and if Tedros is getting involved, if Chaddick sent Kiko to get help instead of going himself, if it involves Yara—

She pushes her way through the crowded bodies of her peers and bursts out into the center of the group just in time to watch Aric, holding Tedros by the collar, punch him hard enough to knock him out. Agatha thinks she maybe screams. Maybe she stumbles. Maybe anything, really.

All she knows is that moments later she’s kicking him off of Tedros, and is holding a glowing finger to his throat, her other hand twisting his arm behind his back in a very painful maneuver. Aric gasps at her speed and skill, and his knees buckle slightly. Chaddick and Beatrix are already by Tedros’ sides, checking him out as his head lolls when they sit him up. His face is bloody and his uniform is dirty, his wool overcoat smeared in mud and crushed snow. Aric’s knuckles are stained red. Agatha’s breathing hard.

She casts a look around at the gathered crowd, sees Reena holding a weeping Yara, dress slightly torn at the hem, and her nostrils flare as she deduces the cause of the fight.

“Who the _fuck_ do you think you are,” Agtha barks at Aric, pushing him to the ground, and extending her still glowing finger in his general direction as he rolls onto his front.

There’s blood in his teeth, she notices, when he grins at her, sitting up on his hands and knees. “I’m glad to finally meet you, Agatha. Heard so much. Everyone’s right, you really _do_ look like a witch, this close.”

She must smirk, she doesn’t really know. His grin fades a little, as he realises the barb didn’t hit. “Nothing wrong with looking like a witch,” she quips. “And you’re a little late on insulting my looks. If I were you I’d run off now. There’s no one here who wants to be party to your brutality.”

None of the Never’s move to disagree. She can hear Tedros wheezing and casts a look over her shoulder at him. Beatrix and Chaddick are helping him to his feet, an arm over each of their shoulders. One of his eyes is swollen closed. Seems _he’s_ the one who needs self defence lessons, especially if he implicated himself to spare Yara and _still_ didn’t win.

In that moment of weakness and distraction, Aric takes advantage, and when she turns back to look at him, he hits her full in the chest with a stunning spell. Agatha topples backwards, shocked expression frozen on her face. The gathered students gasp.

She falls into soft arms — _Dot’s_ arms, she recognises — as two tall figures move into view, Anadil and Hester, both fingers glowing, Hester’s demon fully grown by her knees. “Get out of here, you little snake, or you won’t have the chance to live to regret it,” Hester hisses.

Aric surveys them, casting a look at Anadil’s rats, the demon, the two witches, and finally Agatha, toppled in Dot’s strong arms. He smiles. “Evil’s gone to the dogs,” he says with a small smile, and turns away. The crowd parts for him, the students all watching him with a mixture of shock and apprehension on their faces.

Dot whispers an incantation to herself, waving her blue glow over Agatha and she can breathe again, move again, her blurry eyes clearing.

“You really mustn’t just throw yourself into situations like that, you know,” she lectures her as she helps her sit up again. “You’ve got to be really careful.”

“I know,” Agatha groans as she gets to her feet. “He just got the better of me.”

“You believe me now, don’t you,” Hester huffs, stomping over with Anadil by her side, her demon settling back down on her neck. “He’s a piece of shit to avoid at all costs.”

“Ditto on that,” Chaddick agrees, and Agatha looks over. He’s sitting with Yara now, as the crowd attempts to disperse. Beatrix and Reena are still helping Tedros stand. Hester gives Chaddick a stiff nod which is basically hugging in her book, and then she, Anadil, and Dot turn on their heels to make everyone else go away.

Agatha huffs, hands still shaking from the stunning spell that hit her full in the chest. She knows she has to talk to Tedros, now. Hester’s been pestering her about it for nearly a whole week, and now she’s gone ahead and involved herself with him again. She has to talk to him.

It’s just as Agatha turns in his direction that there’s a rumbling that reaches her ears, followed swiftly by a loud crash and rushing wind as a large black wall of cloud thunders across the clearing, striking everyone in its path to the ground. Agatha ducks as it reaches her, and seems to avoid its destructive power. She watches it hit Tedros. Watches it carry him over the edge of the clearing and straight into the frozen lake. He smashes through the frosted top with a loud crash and then sinks below the water.

The dark cloud dissipates and she’s on her feet immediately, sprinting across the grass, dodging unconscious bodies of her peers. Reena and Beatrix are collapsed not far from where he fell, and both breathing, thankfully. Agatha searches the surface of the water, the waves inside the jagged hole through which he fell still lapping up against the ice, waiting for him to resurface. The clearing is all but silent, everyone in it struck down. The only sound is the ringing in her ears and the hysterical laughter of Aric, pale and wan, having used almost all his energy to conjure such a spell.

Agatha’s breath heaves. Tedros isn’t going to resurface. He was certainly unconscious before he even hit the water. If she doesn’t do anything he’ll drown. It’s hardly a choice.

She dives into the water and swims near-blind through the foggy freezing lake. All she needs is a flicker of movement. A shoe, a tie, some bubbles, _anything._ Her dress, her cloak, her heavy leather clumps all weigh her down as she swims lost, terrified, running out of her own air. Her best friend, her weakness, the boy who just wanted her friendship back is drowning and she can’t find him in the murky water. Agatha _can’t find him._

She presses her hands tight to her chest, squeezes her eyes shut, and lets the fear tremble through her, hoping it will be enough, hoping she can grant one of her own wishes in this moment. When she opens her eyes again, her finger is glowing, but not its usual orange — _no,_ it is gold, _Tedros’_ colour, and it nearly blinds her in its brightness, lighting up everything around her.

She catches sight of shimmering golden hair not far from her, sinking into slimy lake weed, and propels herself, desperately through the water towards him. She could already be too late.

Agatha grabs him under the arm, heavy in unconsciousness, and yanks him upwards, her lungs protesting her breathlessness as she gasps out with the effort it takes to lift him. It’s not too far from the surface, she’s sure they can make it, she knows she can save him, but she desperately needs to breathe as she kicks frantically, her golden finger pointed straight up, other arm wrapped securely around his middle, the back of his neck against her cheek. She’s aiming for the spot of light that’s shining through the hole in the ice, but it’s hard to tell how far she really is from it.

Briefly, in her oxygen-deprived brain, she thinks she’ll die here, holding him fast to her chest, seconds from safety. For a second, she thinks of this, and it doesn’t bother her quite as much as it should.

They burst through the surface and Agatha nearly goes back under as she hacks and coughs up stray water, Tedros’ weight nearly pressing her down into the lake again. But she doesn’t let him, weak legs still kicking, pushing him onto the thick ice, and then dragging herself up with him. She shivers as a cold wind immediately catches them up, ripping through her sodden clothes. No one is moving in the clearing, Agatha notices as she drags Tedros onto the sandy bay of the clearing, taking off his tie to help him breath and turning him onto his side, hoping he’ll cough up all the water he no doubt breathed in during his brief vigil under the water.

She slaps her hand into the middle of his back, hoping to jumpstart his recovery, and is rewarded by a choking, spluttering noise. She watches him spit out water, and shudder as his body realises it’s in danger, kicking it’s survival instincts into gear.

Tense minutes pass as Agatha holds him on his side as he coughs and chokes, dispelling water from his lungs and breathing in shakily. No one rouses. She shivers on the bay, soaking wet and alone, holding the slowly chilling boy she’s been avoiding for months.

Agatha looks at the dark sky. Clouds were rolling in when she was eating lunch. They’ve arrived now. Snow begins to dust them.

When Tedros finally shudders and calms, Agatha looks around again, content that he’s out of immediate danger. There are nymphs now scattered around the clearing, waking students and surveying them for serious injuries. No one’s noticed them on the sand. She spots Dovey and her heart jumps, hope warming her fingers as she shakes from the cold and the adrenaline leaving her form.

She shoots a now-golden spark into the sky before she falls unconscious, Tedros’ head still in her lap, even as she falls limply onto her side.

* * *

Understandably, they both catch really nasty colds. Nothing the nymphs can’t help, but still really awful colds. Enough for two weeks off classes, enforced bedrest, and almost constant supervision. It’s suffocating. Agatha thinks if she has to have one more day of Pollux breathing down her neck about “utilizing this time to catch up on her studies” she’ll actually scream.

As for Tedros, she hasn’t seen him, but she knows he’s about as badly off as her. Beatrix tells her so, getting her information right from Chaddick. Apparently he had a mild case of pneumonia — which takes Beatrix a few tries to correctly pronounce — but with magical intervention such things are easily put aside. Agatha clenches her fists and just nods. Where she’s from, the only help one had when it came to pneumonia was the potions her mother and the other town physician’s made, and the blind hope that maybe a powerful sorcerer was making their way through town at the time. That and hope. Agatha’s not quite sure if these people actually understand how privileged they are.

It comes to a head, her symptoms all but gone, Kiko and Ava snoring softly in their beds (not that she’ll ever tell them), on the Saturday night of the second week of her enforced bed rest. Agatha’s sitting up in bed, arms wrapped around her knees, watching snow fall slowly by the window, never landing, just continuing on, as they’re shielded from such things. She keeps thinking about how Hester and the others are taking the cold in their castle. Then again, can’t be worse than home. No insulation to be seen in their little cottages.

Agatha creaks open their door, checks for the soft jingle of night patrol, and satisfied she’s safe, ventures out into the hall, robe pulled tight around her nightgown, hair caught below the collar, just a bit. No one stirs as she hurries down the crystal stairs, and not a single sound besides the soft slide of her bare feet on the cool glass can be heard in the whole hollow castle, breathing quietly with its inhabitants.

The supper hall is empty and dark when she arrives, but Agatha’s very observant, and she knows where the door to the kitchen is, and she’s done this all before.

Anemone has been dictating her diet for the last fortnight, prescribing tasteless vegetable broth and no dessert. Agatha’s starving for meat and sweets, so she’ll pilfer all she can and go eat it in the library. She shoves her way in and begins puttering around, looking for what she’s sure was a beef stew she heard Kiko talking about earlier, when a small crash draws her attention from the far end of the kitchen. There, by the fire, in a comfy looking armchair, is Tedros.

He meets her eyes, looking like a child with his hand caught in the cookie jar, but she watches some of the tension in his shoulders recede. He’s bundled up in a dressing gown too, his in much nicer condition than hers, and covered in pastry flakes from the croissant she caught him eating.

“In my defence,” Tedros says, voice hoarse. “Dovey was literally only feeding me broth.”  
  
“Anemone’s been doing the same to me,” Agatha responds, immediately. He holds back a smile. Agatha can’t. It feels way too normal. But it’s nice too. After being doted on for so long, it’s nice that he’s just here, treating her the same as he always does. Not like she’s fragile or sickly. He has a habit of treating her better than most, when he’s not considering murdering her.

She shakes the thought away as he starts laughing. It’s bright, but nowhere near clear, he’s still all muddled from the water and the chill and the sickness that followed. It’s good laughter though, healthy laughter. He gets up from his seat, offers it to her. “What do you want to eat? They have tonnes left over from today.”

Agatha breathes carefully as she makes her way over to the comfy looking armchair. “They don’t have a stew, do they?”

Tedros makes a scrunched up face as she sits down and asks, aghast, “Of _all_ things, you’re after _stew?”_

She harrumphs, crossing her arms over her chest, indignantly, “I’ll take pretty much any solids at this point.”

He laughs, short and hoarse but makes his way through the counters in search of the stew she wants, the cauldrons and pots around him magically enchanted to stay warm and well cooked until they’re needed again. He fetches her a bowl of the stuff, and a nice spoon and then settles down on the rug by the fire.

Agatha digs in ravenously, and the silence is companionable. She barely notices how comfortable she is in his presence again until she turns and finds him smiling at the fire, eyes clouded in such a way that she knows he isn’t thinking of it, but of something else entirely.

“Beatrix said you got pneumonia.” He startles at the words, and turns towards her, smile dropped, hands folded in his lap.

Agatha purses her lip, tapping the tip of her spoon against her bottom lip. His mouth twists, and he says, “Yeah. Went away quick, but it was there. Both lungs.”

She thinks he probably sees how a lump rises in her throat, though she doesn’t mean to show it. The fact that he can say something so casual about such a thing. Death sentence, that’s what she’d grown up knowing it as, and here he is, alive and well, after having _pneumonia in both lungs_ a short time ago.

“A,” Tedros says, quietly, worriedly. He puts his hand on her knee — improper, _wholly_ improper, but familiar, friendly — and Agatha breaks.

She basically tackles him to the floor with the energy she uses to hurl herself into his arms, unable to deny it any longer. She misses him so much, and now that she knows how close she could have come to losing him forever? Agatha sucks in deep breaths to hold the tears at bay and hugs him ferociously tight to her, nails scrabbling at his back.

“Agatha,” he gasps, gripping her just as hard and tight, nearly rocking them as he tries to adjust to a more comfortable position, trying to take in her touch, her cheek against his hair, her hands on his back and the back of his neck, her knees digging into his thighs and stomach all pointy and familiar.

“I’m sorry,” she gasps, unwilling to let him go.

“Why?” Tedros demands, shifting her, knees beside his thighs, shaking his head. “No, _don’t_ be sorry—”

“Why didn’t I just forgive you?” Agatha breathes to herself, digging her fingertips into any available expanse of skin she can.

He shakes his head again, holding her tight, hands on her ribs, so tight they’ll probably both leave bruises, but she doesn’t care, won’t care, she never really cared with him, not before. “Agatha, no, don’t okay—”  
  
She squeezes her eyes shut. “But Tedros I could have spared you that, all of it, if I’d been there, with you—”  
  
“You needed time!” Tedros cries, almost wrenching away, just to look at her, to see her, to put his hand on her chin and tip her face towards him, even if she moves away because she can’t stand to be looked at like that. “I was never planning to push you, I shouldn’t have when I did, when I made you fight me, I _never_ should have—”  
  
“I”m sorry,” she says against her better judgement again, tears spilling despite her best efforts. _“I’m sorry.”_

“Don’t be, seriously, you have nothing to apologise for,” he says, and it’s been strange ever since the Circus, to hear him speak like this, like he’s never felt such a great pain before, and he knows only time will help him but he can’t comprehend how long it will take. “The wound is my own, the blame on me, you’re just the person who saved me. And I’m at your mercy again.”

“Not mercy. It was never mercy.” Agatha hiccups and annoyed at her own dramatics wipes her face to look at him clearly. “Tedros, I want it all done, I can’t hold a grudge for an action you never acted on, so I won’t, I just want you back in my life—”

He seems to shudder with relief, drawing her back to him, “Agatha—”

She presses a desperate kiss to his temple and shudders into his neck. And they stay there for the longest time, beside the hearth in the kitchen, cradled in each other's arms, swaddled in robes, staving off the illness that has inexplicably brought them back together.

* * *

“I’ve honestly never understood this. Why crystal? Just build it out of stone like any good castle.” Agatha and pretty much everyone around her react to the booming voice, unfamiliar and far too loud to be polite, speaking over every other voice in the entrance hall of the Good castle. From her vantage point on the stairs, catching sight of the speaker is not hard, and what she does catch sight of is two tall figures in black, arms linked, conversing loudly.

One of them is unknown to her, tall with tanned skin, bronze hair and almost black eyes, blocky and almost severe looking eyebrows, sharp teeth accompanying her wild grin, stepping with such confidence you’d think her a queen herself. The other Agatha knows by heart.

She’s racing down the stairs towards the women, through students and parents alike, her red dress fluttering around her knees and clumps as she runs. She catches Callis in a hug before her mother even recognises her appearance. This stops both the witches short and causes a small commotion from the people behind her, whom the other witch hushes with a sneer, looking quite pleased to see Agatha.

Callis squeezes her tight and then pulls back to look at her. “Yes, this really does suit you, doesn’t it.”

“I’ve missed you so much,” Agatha confesses instead of anything else, and then turns to look at her mother’s companion, whose identity she has sneaking suspicions about. “And you must be my aunt Eris, right?”

“Smart one you’ve got here,” Eris comments to Callis, receiving an elbow to her ribs for her troubles. “Ow, alright. Yes, I’m Eris, so you must be Agatha.”

Agatha, overcome with happiness at their appearance, throws herself into her aunt’s arms and squeezes her tight. The woman stiffens under her, but slowly relaxes and pats her back. “Pleasure to meet you, truly.”

“Very polite,” Eris murmurs, and kicks Callis’ ankle. Yes, she can see the sibling ease between them. “Izzy’s kids were never this nice at her age.”

“Izzy’s kids are the most polite people I’ve ever met,” Callis drawls, taking one of Agatha’s hands and beginning to make her way further into the entrance hall, a surreptitious kind gesture, so as to avoid furthering the bottleneck in the doorway they inadvertently caused. “So I doubt that’s true.”

“Oi,” Agatha says, feeling a mite offended. She laughs though, and Eris gives her something akin to an approving smile.

They wander into the dining hall, already somewhat filled with reuniting families, and Eris gives the room a quick look, top lip curled and eyes slightly clouded with distaste. “Don’t they think this is a bit…much?” She asks, almost under her breath.

Agatha shrugs, knowing the exasperation her aunt must be feeling. “For some reason, all the Ever’s I know will spare no expense over looking gaudy.”

Beatrix snorts as she walks past, apparently having overheard. She winks back at Agatha and Agatha smiles. Eris and Callis watch the interaction with raised eyebrows. “However,” Agatha continues, blushing a little, and leading them further in so they can take a seat at one of the manicured tables, “quite a few of them are also now good friends, and can see how this may negatively affect others, economy-wise. And socially, as well.”

“I see you’re really striving for social change,” Eris comments, fussing about in her seat, so she might sit in the most disagreeable way. “Your mother has been telling me all about your plans for the future.”

“I have a lot of ideas on how we can change the way the classes interact with each other,” Agatha agrees, seating herself primly, as she’s sure this will be ranked as well. “My main goal is to finally even it all out, so that we might perhaps live in equally privileged harmony.”

Her aunt raises her severe eyebrows, and says, “A kind endeavour, but that’s going to be a lot of hard work.”

“I’m willing to do it,” she replies, immediately.

Her aunt and mother exchange a short look. “I can see that. All your passion, your drive. All in your eyes.”

Agatha looks down, feeling almost embarrassed, and toys with one of the small salad forks in front of her (at least, she thinks it’s a salad fork, she thinks that Pollux was being deliberately coy during that lesson). “Dean Dovey says she’ll consider it for my Quest in fourth year.”

“Quite a Quest if you ask me,” Callis mutters, inspecting the flowers in the centrepiece on the table. Nothing useful, Agatha already checked.

“It will be a more manageable goal,” she assures her mother, “but with lots to do with social equality and civil rights.”

“And your other friends?” Callus broaches, attempting to look casual. Agatha’s known her far too long to fall for it, though, and sees the genuine curiosity.

“Are you talking about Tedros, mother?” Agatha sighs, turning to fully face the woman.

“Ah, yes, the boy king,” Eris cackles, drawing some strange looks from the tables around them. “Has he kept his nose out of your business?”

Agatha cocks her head. “We’ve reconciled.”

“Have you?” Callis looks mildly alarmed at this, eyebrows furrowed, nostrils flaring.

“Don’t sound so surprised,” Agatha dismisses. “I was never going to keep him at arm's length for long.”

“But—“

“Mother,” she reaches out and covers Callis’ hands with her own, quieting the concerned witch, “you have to trust me when I say I know _exactly_ what I’m doing, and he is reformed and repentant.”

Callis frowns. “Where is he, then?”

Agatha withdraws and sighs a little. “With no family of his own left, he feels unwelcome at a gathering like this. He’s elected to stay in his room for the time being, so as not to bring down anyone’s spirits.”

Eris purses her lips, looking displeased. She looks at Callis, and almost as if they were speaking telepathically, Callis raises her eyebrows in alarm and shakes her head at her sister. Eris rolls her eyes and cocks her head towards Agatha, as the girl in question watches on in astonishment and confusion. Once the sisters have finished their silent conversation, Callis, looking weary and put upon turns to her daughter and says, “Why don’t you invite the boy king to come down and spend the day with us then?”

Agatha can’t help being taken aback by the suggestion. From her reaction over the Winter Solstice break, Agatha had assumed her mother would never wish to set eyes upon him, much less spend time in his presence. She licks her lips, almost nervously and asks them, “Are you sure? I know you’re not exactly a fan of him.”

Callis sighs. “I won’t have him spend the day alone if his best friend is having fun. I’ll be civil.”

“I’ll be as nice as I see fit,” Eris interjects, grinning in a dark way, and Agatha gets hesitantly to her feet, not sure if they’ve really thought this through. Somehow, she doesn’t think Tedros’ self-important and abrasive attitude will clash well with their blunt and bitterly inclined outlooks.

Still, she climbs the stairs, up into Valor tower and knocks on his door all the same, thinking wildly of all the ways this could possibly go wrong. He answers the door rubbing his eyes, hair mussed, and Agatha flushes when she realises she’s awakened him.

Tedros brightens when he takes her in fully. “Agatha! Did your mother have to stay home again?”

“No, no, nothing like that,” Agatha dismisses, a little flustered at his appearance, despite her experience. She wonders what her mother would think of _that._ Probably nothing good. “It’s just that, well, she’s invited you to join us today.”

“What?” He looks alarmed and disbelieving at that, and gives her a once over that she assumes is to check she’s not being enchanted in some way.

“Her and my aunt, Eris,” she continues, and shuffles awkwardly in place. Since their reconciliation in the kitchens just two months ago, they’re still walking on eggshells around each other, flip-flopping between being overly affectionate and friendly to spooked across rooms, awkward glances quickly diverted when caught. Agata wonders if they’ll ever really get back to what they were. She thinks maybe that’s not possible. “They apparently didn’t like the idea of you having to spend Visitation Day on your own, and they want you to come down with me for the day.”

“I thought your family hated me,” Tedros probes, carefully, still looking bewildered.

“They certainly dislike you,” Agatha allows. “But my mother’s agreed to be civil with you.”

“And your aunt?”

“No such promises.” Tedros gulps, but she gives him an encouraging smile, and he ducks back into his room to put on boots and a nicer doublet.

“Wait until they hear about all the Evil students without anyone to visit them today,” he huffs, fussing with the doublet as they head towards the stairs. “They’ll have a _fit.”_

“Oh trust me they know; my mother was once a teacher there, there’s no way she _couldn’t_ know,” Agatha assures him, batting away his hands and fixing the ties herself. “I think they just wanted to spare who they can where they are.”

He smiles at her when she finishes and they get to walking again. “Say what you want about witches, all the ones I’ve met have very kind hearts, deep down.”

“Don’t let _any_ of them hear you say that,” she snorts, taking the stairs two at a time. “They’ll gut you, no matter if you’re Future King Of Camelot or not.”

* * *

The day goes fine. Callis and Tedros are a little frosty with each other, so Agatha seats them apart from each other. Eris takes great pleasure in picking their brains on School life, and Agatha gets to know her mischievous aunt, learning more and more about her extended family throughout the day.

When night has finally fallen, the entire day spent well, and the parents and guardians are due to be heading off soon — most family’s conversing quietly to themselves, anticipating the call to leave will come any time — Tedros points out the pin holding Eris and Callis’ cloaks closed at their throats, and asks, “Is that the Wardwell crest?”

“It is.” Eris nods, carefully. Both the witches have been alternatively goading and wary since he joined them, but now, with Agatha lying in her mother’s lap on the floor in the front hall, as Tedros and Eris converse on a bench above them, she finds she doesn’t mind too much. They’re being very civil and enjoyable with him, so she had no real reason to fear.

“An eagle?” He raises an inquisitive eyebrow that Eris meets with a short cackle.

“A little joke,” she explains, smiling wickedly. “You’re familiar with the tale of the Lion and the Snake, yes?”

“Of course,” Tedros is playfully affronted by this question, and it’s clear that Eris finds this amusing as well. “Every child in Camelot was brought up with that story.”

“It’s our family’s belief that the only being with true power in that story was the eagle, in that he was the one who made the decision of which of the creatures would be king,” Eris explains to an enraptured Tedros. “Whichever king the agle chose, it would benfit him, and therefore it was a game of power, and the eagle held all of it. Similarly, our family has a lot of power in the woods, and a lot of prestige, so, in our own way, we symbollically take on the role of the eagle. We are agents of justice and peace, mainly. Judge, jury, and executioner, if you will.”

Her prince nods, “Yes, I’ve heard of your effect. Some call you a mafia of sorts.”

More cackling. “Quite astute. It’s justice we believe should be served, and as an Evil leaning family, we can’t always play into your ideas of peace and justice.” Eris pauses cocking her head, the smile that often graces her lips disappearing and leaving them in a limp flat line. There's warning in her voice when she says, “It would be smart of you, boy king, if when you reach your throne, you have us on your side.”

Tedros takes a moment and then beams. “Good thing your niece and I are such good friends, then.” Callis’ arm tightens around Agatha’s chest. “I’d rather die than be in her bad favour again.”

“Yes,” Eris agrees quietly, “meeting her wrath would definitely be something, I think. Something _fearsome.”_

* * *

_Eight months later_

Agatha spins on her heel, hearing the screams closer than before, and thinking whoever it is screaming bloody murder in the Woods is more important than any fight she could be having—

A blur of blonde and pink and blood barrels from the dark of the trees, right into Agatha’s arms, and onto the ground. She knocks her head against a tree as they go down and her vision goes blurry as she attempts to take in the person on top of her.

“Aggie? Is that really you?” A shrill worried voice says, taking Agatha’s face in its soft, small hands. “Oh dear, oh _dear,_ oh—“

Agatha sits up, shaking the blur from her eyes and taking in the blood spattered form before her. “Sophie?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ya know, Soman never specified what Aric's talent was (and the wiki just says he's a really skilled sadist, as if that's useful) so I just gave him vague dark powers for funsies. Plus I had to get Tedros into the water unconscious, and just having Aric come back to beat him unconcious and toss him in the lake wthout anyone stopping him didn't feel feasible so here we are.
> 
> In any case, I'm trying to very vaguely follow some plot from book two (obvs not the whole girl--boy divide, but I won't get into that right now) but I'm sure you can recognise my pattern by now. Next chapter will have more plot, I promise, but I thought having some half-fluffy filler would do y'all some good lol. 
> 
> Tell me what you thought in the comments, and don't be afraid to hit me up on Tumblr if you've got more questions or just want to chat. Once again, thanks to Kate for letting me borrow your OC's/eagle headcanon, which I love btw, I really couldn't help myself.
> 
> See y'all next time!!

**Author's Note:**

> Phew! So, I have much more of this coming. Currently I've only written to the start of the second semester (and that actually brings the current word count for this to 45k) but I'm planning on a couple of time-skips, as I'm aiming for this fic to span around five years. In any case, updates will probably be slow, given my writing process is weird as hell. I've mostly only published this now because the draft was going to be deleted in a few days and there was a lot of promise here already that I didn't want to lose.
> 
> This may undergo a few edits between now and its completion but that's writing, ain't it folks. If you have any questions about this AU feel free to hmu @nose-coffee on Tumblr and I'll answer as much as I can without spoiling too much. Please feel free to leave a comment and a kudos, they are my lifeblood and half the reason I still write.
> 
> Anyway, thank you so much for reading this, I really appreciate it, and I hope you liked it as much as I liked writing it :)


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